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Baltimore, Maryland
2007
A teacher for 13 years, Kristina Berdan, 38, shows her students how to apply the skills of their classes to the real world. In March 2001, nine students in her Community Action course at Stadium School decided to create a youth-run youth center in the community of Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello and Waverly. Motivated by an acquaintance's presence at a shooting, they felt that if he had had a stimulating place to go after school that he wouldn't have been there. The Youth Dreamers were born, and today, even though they have graduated from high school, the dream continues.
With Berdan's guidance, the students bought a yellow house for $12,500 after negotiating its price. Then, at a zoning hearing, they learned that neighbors were distressed about a youth center. Since then, the students have made it their mission to engage the neighbors - doing everything from creating mosaic house numbers for them to hosting block parties to Christmas caroling. They even collected residents' oral histories to get to know them better. "We reached a turning point, and people who were opposed to us said, ‘I see you are trying to benefit other people,' " says Berdan.
Under Berdan's direction, the students have worked with a pro bono general contractor and an architect on renovation plans. The first floor will be a community floor with a lounge, a meeting room and a cybercafé for residents to use computers. The second floor will be a homework/tutoring space. The third floor will be for student employees and a gallery for student art. Most impressive, the students have raised much of the $324,000 needed for renovations on their own - through bake sales, fundraisers, awards and grants. They got a big boost recently when they received a matching grant worth $50,000 from the Baltimore-based Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
In October, the Youth Dreamers house will be the site of a community service day hosted by a local development firm. Volunteers from all over the city will help to paint the house. Youth Dreamers has also teamed up with a neighboring wellness clinic to watch over a large patch of open space - the site of criminal activity in recent years. Berdan says that with all this help she hopes to open the youth center by the end of the summer 2009.
