Harlem Children's Zone
Harlem Children’s Zone is proud to announce that we are engaging with high-performing community organizations in Northwest Dayton, Ohio to build racial and economic equity for children and families in the city.
Funded by a two-year, $8 million grant from our long-time friends, Blue Meridian Partners, the Northwest Dayton Partnership is a public-private effort that brings together numerous groups — including Learn to Earn Dayton, The Dayton
Foundation and Harlem Children’s Zone, among others — to improve educational and economic outcomes for communities of color and reduce racial disparities.
Harlem Children’s Zone’s support of the Northwest Dayton Partnership is the latest in our ongoing National Leadership efforts to scale our place-based model to help under-resourced communities across the country achieve success and self-sufficiency.
Catalyzing Success
Through our William Julius Wilson Institute, Harlem Children’s Zone is sharing best practices — backed by a generation of evidence that we can transform lives and communities through place-based interventions — to catalyze the partnership’s success.
“We are looking for models around the country on how to effectively address the complexities of race, poverty, and education,” Harlem Children’s Zone founder and president Geoffrey Canada told Dayton Business Journal. “This partnership has the potential to serve as a model on how to address, and ultimately solve, these profound issues.”
“Sustained, Systemic Solutions”
The partnership aims to introduce “sustained, systemic solutions” for the northwest Dayton community, including:
Taking a two-generation approach to building well-being by working with children and families
Shifting power to deeply connected, primarily Black-led community organizations
Building high-quality early childhood education for children from birth through age five
Creating quality K-12 schools that close educational gaps
Supporting community-based institutions’ racial and economic equity work
Advocating for policy priorities developed with youth, families and community residents to impact education and economic mobility