Kareem, 13, introduces himself with a bright, toothy smile and firm, practiced handshake. He’s all smiles and youthful energy as he bounces from desk to desk, stopping once to help a younger student on a math problem. He radiates confidence and is charmingly excitable. Kareem doesn’t let on that, until recently, he struggled so much with his school work that it undermined his self-esteem.

“He was terrified of learning,” Dr. Krisha Coppedge, 52, said. She is the executive director and founder of And Still I Rise (ASIR), a learning center in Strawberry Mansion. ASIR offers before and after school care and a summer camp. Kareem is one of her after school students.

When he arrived it seemed like there were two Kareem’s, Coppedge said. He was warm and friendly and happy during free time or arts and crafts. When it was time for homework, however, he withdrew into himself.

“He would hide in the basement and hide in the dark or hide in the teacher’s lounge. He didn’t want people to see him cry,” she said. Once he became comfortable with Coppedge and her staff, Kareem revealed he couldn’t read or easily do elementary level math.

It took three months of dedicated practice for Kareem to learn to read comfortably, but through the process his self-confidence multiplied.

ASIR’s founder and volunteers have many hopes and goals for the kids but Coppedge has distilled the program’s theme into a mantra: “Transforming the way I think about my educational journey… I am smart and intelligent… I am an achiever.”

Laying Down Foundations For Learning

ASIR is a project of love and passion for Coppedge and her husband, James. The program is almost entirely funded by the couple and the staff is made up of a team of volunteers.

The program is housed in the former home of the Church of Living God. Coppedge, a member of the congregation, said that the church outgrew its original home and left the building at 3131 W. Cumberland St. empty until Coppedge and her husband stepped in.

When the two came to worship they saw problems in the neighborhood, but didn’t know what to do, she said.

“We’d start at 6:30 [PM] and see kids roaming the streets. We’d leave at 10, 11 at night and the same kids would still be out there,” she said.

Coppedge and her husband would go on to establish ASIR as a nonprofit in May 2013 following what Coppedge calls divine intervention. “It’s God’s company, not mine,” she said.

Coppedge remembers riding back from visiting family Maryland with her husband and falling into a deep sleep.

“I’m a light sleeper,” she said. “My husband said he just about pulled over because I was asleep so long.”

When Coppedge awoke her next career move “came as a divine revelation — a calling that I can’t take credit for.”

Before ASIR, Coppedge dreamed of being a college professor. After receiving her Doctorate of Management from Colorado Technical University in 2012, she was a candidate for an adjunct professorship Rutgers University. Ultimately the university chose a different individual for the job.

“God had a plan for me. I tried to live my plan, but God kept shutting the doors. But He never shut them all. He always opened the right one at the right time,” Coppedge said.

The Children Are The Future

Standing in ASIR’s classroom, there are 19 success stories in the making; 19 kids learning to love themselves and the opportunities that education can offer.

It can be as simple as a student knowing that they can multiply or divide in their heads, Coppedge said. In her experience, the children who study and play at ASIR are capable of much more than their schools expect from them. Ultimately, Coppedge aims to help her students raise their expectations of themselves.

ASIR has clear goals from the kids: Coppedge is adamant that each student will know their multiplication tables and age-appropriate vocabulary.

The after school program, which takes in students from surrounding neighborhood schools, gives kids the chance to play educational games on the computers or to do some arts and crafts, but its primary focus is to help kids do better in school and improve their confidence in their intelligence.

As for this year’s summer camp, ASIR is investing in Rosetta Stone so that the kids can learn and practice Spanish. The summer program involves trips, too.

“We usually skip the local museums unless something special is happening,” she said. “The schools are able to take them there and the kids just don’t get as excited to go.”

Coppedge hopes to make field trips an important part of the summer program. Some are simple: Coppedge says that trips to Fairmount Park are easy and that the kids love to go.

Some trips require a little more planning and parental involvement: Coppedge hopes to plan a beach day, but knows that she would need almost every child to have an individual chaperone.

Trips to museums in Washington, D.C. or Baltimore are easier to plan, but can be more costly to organize. ASIR’s trips try to balance summer fun and education.

Despite the lack of outside funding, Coppedge is committed to keeping ASIR accessible and affordable to the Strawberry Mansion community. Registration is $45 and secures students a place in in the summer camp plus a t-shirt. Tuition is $150 monthly and covers the cost of the program along with breakfast and lunch each day.

Coppedge gives families until the last day of the month to pay the $150, allowing members of the generally poor community to pay in bits and pieces when they’re able.

More than just a supporting cast

ASIR wouldn’t be able to operate if not for the time and effort put in by Coppedge’s team of volunteers.

Connie Folly, 60, volunteers at ASIR every day. She is also the grandmother of two of ASIR’s students and was introduced to the program by her sister.

“If I can do it, it can be done,” Folly said to an elementary school aged girl struggling to learn her multiplication tables. “I cry sometimes when I think about the kids,” she added. “Some of them couldn’t read.”

Folly works with the youngest members of the ASIR family who start out coming to her for emotional support. Often, Folly said, the children aren’t able to open up about trouble at home or in their neighborhood to anyone.

“I can see when they’re holding it in,” she said. Folly dedicates time each to making sure any child who wants to talk has the opportunity.

“Everybody here mentors everybody else,” she said. After the children become more comfortable opening up, they start to emotionally support their peers and help make ASIR feel like a family.

Coppedge and ASIR “transformed me into a beautiful person,” Folly said.

Since ASIR started in 2013, Harold Byrd has been a volunteer at ASIR first and a student at Strayer University second. Byrd, currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in computer security and forensics, helps the kids at ASIR with their science homework and with their computer skills. He is also the in-house I.T. department.

“He keeps the computers running,” Coppedge said. She added that, like all of her volunteers, Byrd does more than she could reasonably expect.

“Mr. Byrd has really given his life to the program,” Coppedge said. She remembers snowy winter mornings when Byrd would trudge through snow to make sure that ASIR was open if one of kids needed a place to stay warm while their parents were at work.

It’s important to Byrd to maintain relationships with the children at ASIR and nurture them. He said that he tries to fill in some of the emotional gaps in the kid’s lives.

“I come back to see the smiles on the kids,” Byrd said. “If my grades have to suffer, so be it.”

When asked about what ASIR needs, Byrd is warm but blunt: “more volunteers, more funding” and more care from outside the community.

“We’re all learning together and growing,” he said.

Susan Zingale-Baird volunteers at ASIR two days a week. Zingale-Baird (or Ms. ZB as the staff and children at ASIR call her) works for Undergraduate Program in Central European Studies (UPCES) helping students to study abroad.

Zingale-Baird’s passions overlap at ASIR; she’s able to help children learn and grow while encouraging them to consider college even if the obstacles seem insurmountable.

She discovered ASIR through the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development’s (PHENND) listserv and was inspired to volunteer her time by Coppedge’s passion and the organic development of ASIR.

“She very much empowers the kids,” Zingale-Baird said of Coppedge. “She makes them feel good about who they are.”

Zingale-Baird is proud of her work with ASIR but she knows that the program could grow if more resources were available.

“It’s a center that is still in transition,” Zingale-Baird said. “She [Coppedge] needs more volunteers.”

Though Cesar Coney doesn’t work directly with the children at ASIR like the aforementioned educators, his work keeps the keeps the volunteers and students fed. He is responsible for preparing the food served to the children. Coney’s job is peculiar since ASIR cannot cook for the students. Instead, Coney heats prepared foods in ASIR’s small toaster oven.

Coney has taken upon himself to ensure that the kids drink their milk.

“I keep at them, remind them, tell them how much I love milk,” he said. “They may not want it all the time but it’s good for them so I pester them.”

“I’m blessed to have a wonderful staff,” Coppedge said. Even though Coppedge asks her staff to arrive by 2 PM, she said they are usually at ASIR and ready to work by 10 AM.

ASIR succeeds because of the love and devotion of Coppedge and her staff. They work every day to help the children in Strawberry Mansion. “I see myself in every child here,” Coppedge said. “I know the pain of not being able to go home to mom or dad.”