All Peoples Community Center Continues to Help Kids with Distance Learning

Los Angeles, CA. All Peoples Community Center Executive Director Saundra Bryant talks about the difficulties young children are facing in a virtual academic setting and how the center has adjusted its programs to fit the state’s current public health guidelines. Annually, All Peoples hosts a “Back to School” night for youth. This year, to help with the adjustment to remote learning, staff distributed Back to School “remote learning” supply bags. 300 youth received school supplies for the upcoming school year, as seen above.

Bryant explains, “It’s trying to adjust to a new learning curve.” All Peoples Community Center primarily focuses on helping the local youth’s education and wellbeings with the center’s events and activities like extended child daycare, after-school programs, and summer camp.

Bryant notes that children between grades 1-4 had an especially difficult time with distant learning in comparison to other age groups. The staff has found over time that this age group is more focused and easier to help within scheduled one-on-one virtual tutoring sessions.

The organization had to make significant adjustments this year to provide opportunities to kids without risking the spread of the coronavirus in large groups. The staff started to understand the issues surrounding distance learning from contacting parents and the youth of the center’s after-school programs in the first months of the pandemic.

Bryant listed a number of issues exemplified by the parents that include a lack of access to reliable internet and not having responsive, functional equipment needed for virtual learning.

Additionally, while some households are able to function within a stay-at-home environment, other larger households aren’t able to afford the same luxuries.

There can often be multiple people in one household who all need to use their one or two computers for meetings and work at the same time. This can create difficulty for everyone in the household in maintaining a regular routine for school and work fairly.

There are a number of virtual tutors that reach out to specific areas of the center’s youth like beginner art lessons led by Teens Youth Coordinator Erick “Sen” Moreno who has a Youtube channel where he posts his art lessons online like the one seen below:

Bryant’s staff has come up with a variety of ways to keep kids of all age groups engaged in a virtual setting by adding in fun activities that emphasize the main lessons and have talked about starting a book club as well.

The community center hasn’t completely shut down as the 20,000-square-foot building allows for the staff and a select few children to practice social distancing effectively.

“In some cases, we’re able to actually have students to come in for the tutoring sessions,” Bryant said, “that’s been more effective for some of our youth.”

The other reason the community center has stayed open is due to the active participation in certain campaigns with other nonprofits like the Angeleno Campaign which provided thousands of prepaid cards for struggling families, assistance in the ERAS application process for those unable to apply at home, and a weekly food distribution program.

All Peoples will continue to make important decisions for events and programs as the holiday season approaches.

“Normally we would do a Thanksgiving dinner where we would feed between 800-1,000 people,” Bryant said, “we are going to cancel that and we talked about doing a major food giveaway instead.”

Bryant listed an additional concern for the community in February 2021 where several unemployed LA residents could become homeless as a result of the expiration of LA County’s Temporary Eviction Moratorium for Residential Tenants.

“The other major concern that we are focused on is really about the education of our young people,” Bryant explained, “we know that our schools aren’t able to open safely, so what we’re looking at is our young people will have lost a year to a year-and-a-half of education.

“We’re already in a community where there is a concern about the education that our young people are receiving and the support that they need to be able to compete and now they’re a year-and-a-half behind.”

All Peoples Community Center will continue to keep the center open under strict social distancing for the youth who prefer a classroom learning environment and assisting individuals in the community for certain social services and programs.

The center launched the All Peoples Senior Food Delivery Service in October and are currently delivering to more than 40 seniors a week.

The center is labeled by the city’s mayor as an essential services provider and has subsequently seen a large increase of families needing assistance with food and other living essentials. Their donation page is here if you have the means to assist the center to continue operations during this unprecedented time.

From All Peoples Community Center:

Our mission is to provide social services and programs that empower individuals and promote community respect and self-determination for all.

All Peoples Community Center has become a comprehensive community center, delivering a myriad of social and educational services and activities. Our services and activities are driven by the purpose of: