Be the reason why there’s a person out there who still believes in good people: The TEL HI Beacon Community Hub at North Beach Library
By Lorraine Orlandi & Christian Martinez
Our names are Lorraine Orlandi and Christian Martinez. Lorraine is the Beacon director for Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center. She oversees all Beacon programs, including the hub at the North Beach library and our virtual programming at Francisco Middle School. Chris is the Beacon’s newcomer specialist and now the manager of the hub team at the North Beach library. He manages the daily operation at the hub and leads the team of three other staff members there.
Being at the library gives the students access to books! Students are using the Hoopla app to get books online, and they only have to go to the librarian for their library card number. They can also check out books at the library. Library staff are very welcoming and helpful. This is a beautiful, airy space and at the moment it’s all for our hub.
Each student who comes here feels they belong. We give them the chance to express themselves and feel at home in how they take their classes. We have some youth who like to sit at a table, some who like to sit on the couch or on a comfy chair. We try to give the youth a chance to feel at home but still with a sense of direction and being on task. They can bring their own snacks to eat during class, or have a cup of noodles for breakfast. We can put their items in the fridge and heat up their food. We ask a lot, how are you feeling, to get a sense of their orientation for the day, their emotions and head space. We greet everyone when they come in, we tell them good morning or say, how’s it going.
We try to take small walks around the neighborhood, to drop Omar at the bus stop, for example, or to Safeway for snacks, and we play sports together.
Having Brayan at the hub has had a very positive impact on his education and emotional health. He’s a student that Chris was working with before (a newcomer student, he and his family have been living in a shelter), and even during distance learning before the hub he was struggling to understand the materials. His English is not good, so being in class was already difficult and trying to log into zoom every day was a struggle because the instructions and how-to’s are all in English.
Now his mom tells Chris he wakes up every morning happy to come to the hub and happy he’s going to come and get help logging into his classes. Brayan has also expressed that he’s happy to be here. He can be shy, but he expresses himself and gets along with everyone here. At home there aren’t many things he can do, but when he’s here he can keep himself entertained and talk with his friends. Brayan’s actually doing a lot more work now than he was when he was at home.
Chris has been cutting students’ hair since last school year. He would cut students hair who were part of his after-school soccer or football team, with parent/guardian permission. Some of those students are attending the hub now and continue to ask for haircuts. Chris has been providing haircuts, free of charge, for students that find it hard to find a barber or cannot afford to pay a high price for a haircut every two weeks.
This experience allows him to build stronger connections with the youth through an activity that is not related to school. They can just chat and discuss things like adults would at your local “Barber Shop.” Cutting hair allows students to give each other compliments on their new haircut, such as “looking sharp” or “ that fade is clean.”
“I like to get cut up from Chris because sometimes I don’t have the money to cut my hair, and Chris is my homie. Chris got bars too, makes me look fresh every time. Like for my birthday, I had no money, I was broke, and I asked Chris if he could cut my hair Friday because my birthday was on a Saturday. He made me feel good for my birthday and made my day extra special. Chris puts on the whole hub with cuts.”
Hasan
A Day at the Hub
Staff members come in around 8:50 to check in as a staff and get situated for the day and what’s ahead. They talk about after school activities and who’s running them so we’re prepared for that day. Hannah sets up Chefables cereal and milk on a table near the entrance, along with a thermometer and hand sanitizer.
As students arrive we take their temperatures and they grab a breakfast and go to their pods (we have 14 students divided into two groups). The students start getting ready for class at 9:45. Some go upstairs and some stay downstairs, each group with two adults, and start preparing for school.
Phones get collected by staff members and placed in an area where everyone can see them, students can use them at the breaks. No one has their phones during class.
Chris and Kelvin check in with individual students to be sure they are ready for their classes and what work they still need to do. A lot of check-ins are done with the students so they know what classes they have and what work needs to be done. That day’s bell schedule is posted on a whiteboard with the break times. During classes, staff members roam around making sure students are in class, or they sit next to them helping them to understand the material and complete assignments.
All of the students at the hub attend Francisco Middle School except one, who has a different schedule. She’s part of one of the pods, but she arrives a bit earlier and one staff member works with her individually. She is inside in class while the others are outside for lunch, for example.
At lunch time the staff members set up meals on a table near the door, usually a hot lunch that is ordered from Chefables by staff. Students take their lunch outside to picnic tables in front of Joe DiMaggio playground, or to the basketball courts at the park.
Students can “shop” in the student store during lunch, using points they have earned for attendance, participation and positive behavior to get healthy snacks (prices are very accessible!).
Students return from lunch for their last class and then we finish the school day strong, helping them with work and completing assignments.
About five to six students stay for after-school activities. They get open spaces or free time from 2:30 to 3, when they can use phones, watch videos, play games on the library computers or play ping pong upstairs.
At 3 the staff starts a team building activity or enrichment time, depending on the day — MWF they have America SCORES soccer at Joe DiMaggio/North Beach Park in a designated area; on Wednesday they use Science Action kits from the California Academy of Sciences to go bird watching and cataloguing in the park and around the area.
T-TH is for homework help or team builders with Sam — board games, card games, ice breaker activities, movie/videos and discussion. A teamwork activity might be leading a group along “stepping stones” of plastic discs — without talking. Or they can play jeopardy in teams or singles with questions around the community hub or school subjects.
FUN FRIDAY is when youth can choose activities — lately going out to play basketball. They decide on something the whole group would like to do.
The highlight really is when you see the turnaround in terms of homework completion/classwork completion. The happiness that students get from being able to complete that work and seeing their grade go up drastically or even just a little bit. And feeling good about themselves. Right now Basel is the first person with all A’s at the hub, he’s going to all of his classes and coming in on time.
Hasan is another student. We’re seeing that turnaround, he’s going from all F’s and now coming in on time, putting extra work in, reading extra pages even though he doesn’t want to. It’s really rewarding for us and a highlight for the hub, and that’s what the hub represents.
A challenge can be how to support students that should be at the hub but are not coming, and wanting to reach out more, but knowing that we can only do so much.
Also, how much screen time they have, and asking them to do more on screen after school, this challenges the Beacon to do things off the screen as well. And the distancing requirements can make it difficult to do activities.
“I love San Francisco! I ask myself where else would I want to live. San Francisco is so diverse and accepting, you can be freer here. I think that even now it’s a good place to live, for that same reason — there’s a lot to offer, there’s diversity. I think that’s the most important thing for someone to be open-minded, especially coming from a minority and understanding there are options and not just the status quo keeping you where you’re at. SF has also taught me to be aggressive, it’s a fast-paced life and you will be left behind if you don’t catch up soon. That said sometimes we do need that extra support, there are a lot of resources in SF. Many families we work with don’t know about those resources or if they know them they are afraid to use them. Also, SF has a lot of students from different neighborhoods, so the schools are also diverse so it gives us the opportunity to see other styles of living even if we live in the same city. There are a lot of opportunities, public school, private school, you can be successful it doesn’t matter where you go. I grew up in the public school system with a lot of friends who went to Catholic school or private school. We’re all the same. You know they say the same people you see on your way up might be the same ones as you see on your way down.”
Chris
Our City can help Hub students and their families thrive by giving iPads or other devices to the families the way we gave the students iPads and devices, if we’re also requiring families to do a lot of online stuff. We should be giving families more technology and providing more tech workshops for families in their neighborhoods.
Also, the City needs to create more hubs and hub space for more students in need.
Chris, what song motivates you to continue to serve our communities as we struggle and grind through the pandemic?
Twista, “Hope.” I like any music that does this: Be the reason why there’s a person out there who still believes in good people.
To learn more about DCYF’s Community Hub Initiative, visit dcyf.org/care
