A drawing of Bright Beginnings second child development center in Southeast D.C. A groundbreaking ceremony for the center is scheduled for March 15. (Courtesy Photo)
Bright Beginnings, a nationally accredited center providing childhood education and emotional and physical assistance to destitute families, will open a second development center for homeless children in D.C. in 2017.
A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. March 15, at 3418 Fourth Street SE. The event will include D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), Ward 8 Councilmember LaRuby May (D), and John Wall of the Washington Wizards, who has already donated $400,000 of his own money towards the creation of the second center.
“People often think we are a shelter, but we are not,” Whitney Faison, Bright Beginnings communications specialist told the AFRO. “We take families already living in crisis shelters and provide their children with speech, physical, and emotional therapy. We give their children a chance to experience healthy education, dental programs, and things like family style dinners.”
The organization serves 162 children whose families are living in crisis shelters or transitional housing. The new center will serve an additional 100 children, newborn to 5 years old, and also create new job opportunities with an operating budget of nearly $2.5 million. The facility will be located at 3418 Fourth Street SE, in close proximity to a large number of shelters in Ward 8.
The new facility will continue the tradition of providing social services to parents while working on their permanent housing needs, providing health connections for mothers, and holding family forums that teach participants about the rights they have while being homeless. “We are a community,” Faison said.
The center will also expand the organization’s current resource center to provide parents with computer office skills, resume creation, job searches, and job training programs to aid in their search for and acquisition of employment at places around the city such as Goodwill. “Our parents are so important to us and our children,” Faison said. “We always encourage our parents to be a part of what we do and give them an opportunity to do things like help lead different classes, partake in our family style dinners, and at the end of each year, we present all parents with a Parent-Ceremony just to say thank you for all their hard work.”