This sounds like a joke, but I kid you not.  I was visiting one of the four elementary schools in our Neighborhood last week, and had a quick chat in the hall with our amazing and committed Principal (names withheld to protect the innocent, and the guilty – read on...

Difficult choices face any start-up non-profit organization when deciding where to spend its first dollars.  With the existence of many different needs in the community, any organization must have a clear sense of its own mission and its strategy for effecting change...

We have an incredible opportunity here at the Charleston Promise Neighborhood and, like everything else we do here, we’re seeking your input and support. We’ve been invited to submit a grant application for a multi-year project focused on empowering and supporting...

Real community engagement does not occur without the efforts of dedicated volunteers, and this week we want to recognize some of the tremendous inroads we are beginning to make, due to several special folks. For the Charleston Promise Neighborhood to be a success,...

In our last blog post, Dwayne talked about some of the elements of success that the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) has built into its seamless system of college-bound programs and services.  They include starting programs in early childhood, expanding learning...

Like a good book that gets better with every reading, or a movie in which you notice something different every viewing, the words of Geoffrey Canada never cease to amaze.  I had the opportunity to hear Geoffrey Canada speak for the second time in three months when I...

Just a few months ago, Dwayne and I had an opportunity to attend the Liberty Fellowship Summit in Columbia where more than 700 progressive thinkers came together to discuss some of South Carolina’s most pressing issues in the areas of education, economic development,...

Part of our objective with this blog is to inform the public about what the Charleston Promise Neighborhood is trying to achieve.  We have chosen Sanders-Clyde, Mary Ford,  James-Simons, and Chicora elementary schools as the initial focal points for our efforts, but...

The Charleston Promise Neighborhood has released its Annual Commitments for 2011.  This document outlines the organization’s goals and objectives for the upcoming calendar year, and we are sharing these with our donors, supporters and the public so that we can be held...

As Dwayne mentioned in his earlier post that summarized our last six months, the CPN Program Team is hard at work on our elementary school “resource infusion” strategy to provide additional supports to the four CPN Elementary Schools (Sanders-Clyde, James Simons, Mary...