Founder and director of Diversity Nurtures Achievements (DNA) Community Youth Center Earlean Rivers checks homework just completed by Jacion, a student in the center’s after-school care program. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Students in the DNA Community Youth Center after-school care program complete homework before taking part in other activities, like playing, gardening or dancing. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
A young student, in the DNA Community Youth Center’s after-school care program, concentrates on a spelling assignment. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
The Diversity Nurtures Achievements (DNA) Community Youth Center is located at 104 Revelle Road, Warsaw. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
WARSAW — After 30 years in the daycare business, Earlean Rivers decided it was time to move on. Stop taking care of kids. Do something different. But the universe disagreed. “It’s like, no, this is what you’re supposed to do,” she says.
This realization led her to establish the non-profit Diversity Nurtures Achievements (DNA) Community Youth Center in 2014, where she — with help from family members — continues to work with kids on a daily basis, albeit in a different capacity than before.
DNA, located at 104 Revelle Road at the edge of the Warsaw town limits, is home to two distinct programs — one in the morning, the other in the afternoon.
The morning program, from 7:30 to 1:30, Monday through Friday, is a structured learning program for youth who have been suspended or expelled from school for five or more days, or are on probation. Most of the kids in this program tend to be middle and high school students, although it does sometimes include younger students, as well. “The ultimate goal,” says Rivers “is for them not to have such an educational gap while they’re not in the traditional setting.” To that end, she employs a retired, certified teacher from Duplin County Schools to work with the students one-on-one.
“We don’t babysit,” Rivers emphasizes. “You can’t come here and think you’re going to look at the wall ‘cause you can’t do that. We’ve got to go forward.”
She is in frequent contact with principals and counselors in the Duplin County Schools system, receiving student referrals and then, throughout the students’ time at DNA, managing their assignments, accessing learning materials, etc.
Students who are suspended, but remain enrolled in the county school system, continue to be provided with breakfast and lunch each day, which Rivers picks up from their school and brings back to the DNA center. For those who have been expelled and are no longer enrolled, Rivers still sees to it that they get fed, noting, “A hungry child cannot learn.”
There is no fee charged by DNA to parents of children in its structured learning program, as the cost is covered by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Juvenile Justice program.
DNA’s afternoon program provides after-school care from 3 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. This program is open to all ages, the one proviso being that the kids must be enrolled in school. “Right now, I’ve got kindergarten through high school seniors,” Rivers notes. Obviously, it isn’t common for high school students to be in an after-school care program, but Rivers explains that the senior to whom she is specifically referring was actually one of her daycare charges, who has become so attached to the center that she continues to come back at least once a week. Sometimes the young lady needs help with her own schoolwork; other times, she helps the younger students.
The after-school routine at DNA begins with the students receiving a full meal, thanks to a partnership with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. “After they eat, they know to clean up their area and jump into their homework,” says Rivers. “And if they don’t have homework, they have to read. We’ve got a whole library of books.”
The focus for the after-school program is exactly the same as it is for the structured learning program, Rivers insists: academics. The importance of academics is something she stresses repeatedly.
Once homework is completed, the weather usually dictates what comes next. If it’s too cold or rainy to go outside, the kids have a number of indoor activities — including playing board games and dancing — to choose from. But when the weather cooperates, they race for the backdoor, spilling out into a world of possibilities: playing, gardening, caring for animals.
Rivers and several family members live adjacent to the DNA center, and they keep a number of farm animals — such as goats, pigs, chickens and turkeys — that the children learn to care for.
And the center has established a garden, through a partnership with SNAP-Ed (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education), giving the kids real-world experience with growing their own food. “If you learn how to drop a seed, you won’t be hungry,” Rivers explains, adding that the kids take part in the entire process, “from the seed to the harvesting to taking it inside, putting it on a scale, showing them how to weigh the produce.” When they have more food than can be used at the DNA center, any extra gets donated to the local Senior Citizen Site.
Rivers has long recognized the disparity between the opportunities afforded to kids in large cities versus those available to kids in small, rural towns — and it motivates her to pursue as many positive experiences as possible for the kids in her care. Most of the girls in DNA’s after-school program participate in Girl Scouts, and all of DNA’s after-school kids participate in 4-H. One project that is especially popular is the Chicken Project, where the kids start out with several eggs (delivered by a 4-H representative) and then care for the chicks once they’ve hatched. “They’ll raise ‘em, they’ll take ‘em to the livestock show in Kinston, and our kids win,” Rivers proudly proclaims.
Her goal is to eventually offer the after-school program free to parents, but, for now, a small fee is charged.
Most of DNA’s funding comes from grants. “We’re applying for grants every single day,” she explains. “Not a day goes by when I’m not beating the bushes trying to find some source of revenue for our facility.”
Funding from grants is also essential for DNA’s annual summer camp program. At the close of each school year, the center shuts its doors for two weeks, both to give the kids a break and to give Rivers and her team a chance to do any building maintenance that needs to be done — and then DNA opens back up for a seven- to eight-week summer program that runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. This program, she explains, is “pretty much an expansion of what after-school is like. Academics is still going to be the main focus.
“We do try to do a lot of STEM activities ‘cause that’s the route that we’re going into with this new generation.”
Year-round, Rivers cares for kids — and whereas she once felt the need to explore a different career path, that’s no longer the case. She has found her calling. “I love doing what I do,” she says. “Quitting isn’t an option.”
