S t a r f i s h L e a r n i n g C e n t e r
HISToRY, STaFF, & the STaRFISH SToRY
Starfish Founders
The
Baileys
HISToRY
Starfish
Learning Center opened in February 1997 in the home of Jerry and April Bailey
with two computers and one student who needed help with reading. Word of
our after-school center spread quickly and by May, just three months later,
enrollment had reached 60! Located in the "North of Howard" neighborhood
of east Rogers Park in Chicago, Starfish caters to children exposed to
gangs, drug activity, and crime on a daily basis. In addition to educational
support services, we began to offer positive activities and programs some evenings and weekends to keep
the kids off the streets.
Starfish moved to a larger facility in May 1997, where enrollment settled to a manageable 30, but the waiting list continued to grow. As our program developed, more computers, learning and game software, and special programs, the children's grades began to improve as did their attitudes and behavior. Teachers at the neighborhood school began recommending other students to our center.
A park expansion project meant our building was slated for demolition so Starfish relocated to a smaller building in December 1998, but the center moved to its permanent home at 1543 W. Howard St. in 2004. Today, Starfish serves about 25 students through homework assistance, a computer lab, a children's library, games and contests, daily Bible study and prayer, educational outings, summer camp and trips, special events, performing arts workshops, and more.
Starfish is been supported by individual donors and foundations. We appreciate your support; you can help us make a difference. The Starfish Clowns, a troupe of talented balloon-twisting clowns, also help raise money for the center, and have appeared at Custer St. Fair for years, Celebrate Clark Street, and many other locals events.
STaFF
Jerry Bailey,
Executive Director
For most of my life I was never involved much with kids. Then in 1992, a friend
asked me to volunteer as a youth counselor at a boy’s camp in Lake Geneva,
Wisconsin. I agreed. During that week I developed a real love for kids. I knew
my calling in life was working with young people. Since then, I’ve been back to
that camp every summer and now serve as a program director there.
From that week I went to speak to April, a youth leader in my church. We ended up getting married and working together with children. We have since become speakers, clowns, illusionists and teachers, and have performed for and spoken to young people across the Midwest and even in the Philippines.
I’m proud to be involved in the lives of these children. I want them to grow up knowing they’re loved, being told there’s nothing they can’t do and having the opportunities most other kids take for granted.
April Love Bailey, Director
I have been a youth leader since 1990, when I began working with junior high students at my church. It truly changed my life.
The vision for Starfish began when Jerry and I started working with inner-city kids in 1992. There is such a difference, such a need, in these kids-educationally, emotionally. But they are also so refreshing, forgiving, funny, loving and brutally honest that they constantly teach us things. But there’s an awesome responsibility that comes with leading the young. They are impressionable, vulnerable and “moldable.” I don’t take that lightly and I consider each child precious and valuable. At Starfish we encourage the children to make good, moral decisions in their lives while allowing them to be who they are. It hurts me to see mothers hitting, yelling or cursing at their young children. Years later, they often reap the heartache and pain they themselves sowed into their child’s life.
Jerry and I have no children of our own yet, but I feel like a second mom to 25 kids in Gateway. Starfish is a vision that had been on our hearts for years. Now that the center is a reality, it’s more rewarding than I ever imagined. It’s great to help children get excited about learning and it’s a true blessing to lead, teach and get to know these kids and to see in their eyes how love, encouragement and commitment impacts them in return.
[WRITE ON: Read an article April wrote for Canada's Vitality Magazine at: http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/node/1708.]
Jason Croox
As long as I can remember, I have been irresistibly drawn to kids. It started with mission trips to orphanages in Guatemala and Haiti, and today I’ve found that whether it’s teasing kids at church, annihilating them in Madden ’09 (the one game at which the kids can’t beat me), or holding a sleeping child in my arms, I feel more myself with kids around. Even with all their youthful innocence and, at times, blessed ignorance, it seems that I still have learned more from them than they have from me. At the same time, I have a passion for seeing kids realize their full potential and trust God in every area of life.
Susan Croox
I first fell in love with the young folk when I took up a summer job as a camp counselor. One particularly needy eight-year-old won my heart and planted a seed of desire to love kids who especially needed it. Through various camp counselor and babysitting experiences, I recognized that I was drawn to the innocent, goofy, and light-hearted nature of children. Upon graduating college, I realized that I only wanted to work either teaching music or hanging out with kids. Years later, that’s the story of my life! Once I heard about Starfish, knowing myself and the way I felt about kids, I knew I would get drawn in eventually; it was only a matter of time. And here we are, as fate and God would have it.
STaRFISH
SToRY
A man was walking along a beach
covered with thousands of starfish that had washed ashore. They were dying.
Every so often the man would pick up a starfish, and with a mighty cast of his
arm, throw it back into the ocean. Then he’d walk on, stop and repeat the
process. He did this over and over.
Another man on a nearby sand dune watched with great bewilderment. Eventually he
could stand it no longer and headed towards the mysterious beachwalker. When he
reached the man he pointed to the starfish littering the sand and said, “There
are so many. You’re not making a difference.”
The beachwalker paused, picked up a starfish, held it out tenderly for the
curious man to see, and then, with another mighty cast, sent it back to the
depths of the sea. He turned back to the confused man, smiled and said, “I made
a difference to that one.”