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Students have for years gone to The Boys and Girls Club of Syracuse clubhouses to socialize and play together after school. This year, though, they have faced temperature checks, sign-in sheets and strict social-distancing procedures. 

The Boys and Girls Club, which has four clubhouses across the city, typically holds after-school child care and tutoring programs for students in the city. During the pandemic, the organization has opened its doors from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. for students to take online classes and take pressure off caregivers.

“For our kids and for our families, it’s important that there’s a space where they can call when they need help, when they need support, when they need guidance,” said Jeffrey Eysaman, the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Syracuse. “Especially at a time when a lot of people feel like they’re very alone.”

Learning centers throughout Syracuse have become essential for families facing challenges related to the pandemic. The centers have provided classroom space, meals and essential resources for students, and child care for working caregivers.

The North Side Learning Center provides tutoring and academic support for refugee and immigrant families in the city. During the pandemic, the center has also helped impacted families apply for stimulus checks and fill out unemployment applications, said Mark Cass, the executive director of the North Side Learning Center.

The center, which was founded and is run mainly by refugees, has a team of 11 people who speak over 15 different languages.

“We are a place to go where you can go to get information that you need to take care of your families, find work, handle school, handle landlord issues, really everything,” Cass said.

The North Side Learning Center and the Boys and Girls Club have also provided families with food and other essential items.

The North Side Learning Center opened a food pantry at the beginning of the pandemic, Cass said. The pantry, which the center funded through the Central New York Community Foundation’s COVID-19 relief fund, served over 200 families throughout the summer.

The Boys and Girls Club’s East Fayette Street and Shonnard Street locations also have food pantries open to city residents who can’t afford meals, Eysaman said. The organization also delivered “food boxes” to families throughout the summer that included ingredients for meals and other essential items.

The Boys and Girls Club delivered “food boxes” to families throughout the summer that included ingredients for meals and other essential items. Elizabeth Billman | Senior Staff Photographer

Many of the centers have also offered extra help to students and families who have had difficulties accessing online learning.

Syracuse City School District started the 2020-21 school year online on Sept. 14, then transitioned to a hybrid model Oct. 2, with students returning for in-person classes twice per week. Several parents in the district who have limited access to technology or Wi-Fi have had difficulty accessing online courses. 

Partners in Learning, an educational nonprofit organization in Syracuse that works mainly with families who speak English as a second language, has helped students access online learning during the pandemic, said Chad Underwood, the organization’s executive director.

While the center has kept its courses largely online, it has helped students access programs like Proliteracy, an adult literacy and basic education platform that offers online English language courses, Underwood said.

Opening the Boys and Girls Club’s clubhouses during the day has offered a safe space for students who can’t access Wi-Fi or don’t have a space at home to take classes, Eysaman said.

During the day, the Boys and Girls Club confines students to a single room, brings them food, and limits the sharing of items or supplies, Eysaman said.

“For the parents, a few months ago, they weren’t teachers. And now they’re expected to support their household as the role of teacher and schedule maker,” Eysaman said. “We just wanted to do the very best that we could to support them and to support some of the needs that we know that they have.”

The North Side Learning Center also spent the majority of September helping families adjust to online classes and providing them with information about the school’s reopening plans, Cass said.

The center also offered education programs in-person during the summer for students who struggled with online learning, especially those learning English as a second language, Cass said. The programs prioritized high schoolers who were at risk of not graduating on time, high school graduates who weren’t prepared to enter college and elementary school students, he said.

“It was really an impossible situation — teachers were put in a position of trying to learn how to deliver learning virtually with lack of equipment, lack of access, lack of experience,” Cass said. “I think most folks would say from March to June there was very little education happening, so (our) in-person classes this summer really grew out of that concern.”

Even as they have expanded services to meet the needs of the community, many of Syracuse’s learning centers have struggled with a lack of resources and funding as a result of the pandemic’s financial fallout.

Partners in Learning, which typically receives its funding from the county, lost a significant amount of money when the coronavirus pandemic began, Underwood said. The county cut one of its contracts with the organization by 15% and delayed another $200,000 contract that was set to take effect in May, he said.

“(The pandemic) has had an impact on the people we would have served as well as the staff who would’ve provided services,” Underwood said. “But we’re trying to do everything we can to provide the best set of services given the circumstances that we have.”

The Boys and Girls Club and the North Side Learning Center have both had to cut back significantly on volunteers to abide by my social distancing protocols for their in-person classes.

While Syracuse University students typically volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club, they haven’t been able to visit the center in-person since the beginning of the pandemic, Eysaman said. This has been difficult for some children who look to SU students for social interaction and mentorship, he said.

“For some of our kids, this is where they eat, this is where they play, this is where they get mentored,” Eysaman said. “So for them to not have some of those spaces and really not be able to have their relationships with staff members and volunteers has really been tough for a lot of them.”

Eysaman and Cass both said their organizations have been coordinating with the university to offer virtual tutoring from student volunteers.

Despite the challenges the pandemic has posed, the directors of all three centers said they are doing everything they can to support students and their families. The centers are an essential part of many residents’ lives, and they are needed now more than ever, Eysaman said.

“It’s certainly not normal but I do think it’s what we need to be doing for the people that rely on us,” Cass said.

Published on October 11, 2020 at 11:40 pm

Contact Maggie: [email protected] | @maggie_hickss