Grassroots charity launches building renovation effort

A small west Charlotte charity that helps African-American and immigrant children with school work is in need of money to renovate the donated building where it stages after-school tutoring and summer day camp programs.

The Neighborhood Family Resource Center says the $31,000 renovation plan includes opening up space so it can add more school and summer programs that reach a diverse group of children, including members of the Vietnamese minority known as the Montagnards.

Many families from the Vietnamese Montagnard community live in the Ponderosa neighborhood surrounding the center, off West Boulevard, said nonprofit leader Marjetter Crooms. North Carolina is the largest Western enclave of resettled Montagnard refugees, who are native to the central highlands of Vietnam. The Refugee Resettlement Office has helped establish hundreds in the Charlotte area since 1986.

“In a lot of cases, the children are the only ones in the family who speak English, so they don’t get much help at home with their school work,” said Crooms. “They are a very shy people, and their parents won’t answer the door when I knock.”

The center’s after-school program has 10 children enrolled, half of them Montagnard and half African-American, she said. Crooms said many of the families are struggling financially, including situations where the children don’t have their own room. “They sleep on the couch,” she said.

Renovation plans are aimed at increasing the center’s capabilities, including knocking out some walls and shoring up the foundation in a room that is now used only for storage. The nonprofit received aid on planning the project from Habitat for Humanity Charlotte, Crooms said.

Crooms started the nonprofit in 1997 in a borrowed corner of University Memorial Baptist Church, hoping to serve children in the Ponderosa, Wingate, Pinecrest and Plato communities. However, the students helped aren’t limited to just those communities.

Disabled by brain surgery in 1986, the former legal secretary began spending her time doing community work. She made children her priority, tutoring them and giving them a place to go after school.

Programs at the school are focused on helping children stay at grade level, along with family support and adult literacy efforts.

Crooms said the center is hoping to combine grants with donations to fund the renovation work. It’s hoped the project will be finished this summer, she said.

This story was originally published May 11, 2015 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Grassroots charity launches building renovation effort."