Mission Promise Neighborhood Partner Interview Series (Part 2): Jamestown Community Center
Earlier in the Spring, CPNN met up with three of Mission Promise Neighborhood’s 15 partners: Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, Jamestown Community Center, and Mission Graduates. In our interviews with each organization, we learned why their community-rooted services are so vital to the Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN) model, how they work across different community partners to maximize their reach, and why collaboration is key for them.
Below is our interview with the Jamestown Community Center.
Guided by the cultural traditions of communities they serve, the Jamestown Community Center provides youth development services such as sports, arts education, parent leadership development, before and after-school academic enrichment, and much more. Through their efforts, they support youth and families on their way to becoming healthy, thriving members of society.
We had the chance to sit down with Jamestown Community Center’s Executive Director, Nelly Sapinski, and Director of Programs, Jessica Linares, who shared how the cultivation of trust and safety with underserved youth and families acts as the foundation for connections that transform lives.
Interviewer: Why is your work vital to the Mission District and its community?
Jessica: We’re providing a safe space for youth, especially when their parents have to work. As a community center, we are able to speak the language that our community uses, as well as be reflective of the community itself. One of our biggest strengths is that a lot of our staff have been in the schools and in the shoes of the students or in the parents who are sending their youth to the community schools we are located in. We have that face-to-face relationship since we're present as the go-to person for the parents, and we're able to connect them with the larger community at and in school.
Nelly: Jamestown has been in the Mission community for over 50 years. We are a trusted organization, not only for the families and youth that we serve, but also citywide. People know what Jamestown is, and they know that we are here to support our most under-resourced youth and families. We support them not only by the work we achieve, but also through our collaborations and partnerships. For example, recently we’ve been bringing in mental health specialists to support our young people through both services for traumatic experiences, as well as for general socioemotional learning. They’ve provided the opportunity for children to learn how to navigate their world with the expertise that our kids and families may not otherwise be able to afford. We’ve also brought in partnerships that support technology, STEM activities, singing, dancing: whatever it may be, our kids receive additional experiences with us that they may not otherwise get regularly.
Interviewer: Why is your work vital to the Mission District and the community?
Margarita Gomez: My job is to be a facilitator of the Abriendo Puertas program, where I receive the recently arrived immigrant community members and guide them in the education of their children. It is a popular educational program, in the sense that from home we can be the teachers—the first teachers of our children. I teach them how to advocate for their children in schools, at the doctor's, and how to guide them in healthy, wholesome nutrition. We connect them with resources in MEDA and across other MPN partners, which in turn helps them find housing, jobs, computer classes, food, since we know that they are newcomers. We direct them and we guide them to where they can go. These are through sessions in which all the mothers participate and learn from each other.
Interviewer: What exactly is the work that you do with Abriendo Puertas?
Margarita: We implement Abriendo Puertas twice a year, with a total of 30 mothers. We hold 10 meetings with them, and distribute 120 books among participants during each session. This material is important because it is how they have the tools to be able to start reading to their little ones at an early age. We also listen to the needs of the mothers, which is what is important. Through the different Tandem programs, I also offer readings to the children and technical assistance and workshops to the educators in the schools. I also offer playgroups in some of the different agencies.
Carola: We have programs in the mission that are dedicated to the more formal schools, such as the district schools. Then we also have formal schools, but they are run by agencies. Through another program that we have called Read&Play, we also offer playgroups and facilitate workshops for educators from this program who have family childcare. So Margarita offers a demonstration of how to do a reading and then, based on that reading, she has already developed an activity and facilitates the activity with the mothers, with the fathers, with the caregivers who are present, and the children. The goal is for them to learn, to teach them from a more open point of view, one that is not obligatory.
Interviewer: What partnerships within the MPN network complement or maximize your work?
Carola: MEDA [the backbone agency for Mission Promise Neighborhood] is a great resource for Margarita because every time she facilitates the Opening Door sessions, she is constantly connecting to the mothers within the different services that MEDA has. In regards to housing, for example, there are many mothers who, when they arrive, do not have a home, so Margarita connects them with MEDA too. MEDA helps them find accommodations and settles them.
There are also English classes. Through these classes, Margarita creates that bridge to the Department of Education because they are the ones who provide the funding for the schools and agencies that Margarita works with in the Mission.
Interviewer: How does your organization contribute to the Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN)?
Jessica: We have high numbers in our program, and our day-to-day activities really help the MPN with the data collection. Beyond data, we also provide on-the-ground perspective. We're in the community schools Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., whether they're on holidays or on summer break.
Some may believe it’s easy to think of a solution for a community, but when you have on-the-ground expertise, being in the nitty-gritty day-to-day allows us to give better feedback to any of the strategies that MPN is thinking of implementing. So in that sense, that day-to-day experience allows us to speak through the data.
Interviewer: Which partnerships within the network complement or maximize your work?
Jessica: One key partner would be the Instituto Familiar de la Raza: specifically, our IFR mental health consultant. They have supported in so many capacities at the school site by helping to bring solutions with the school team and with our team. They build capacity by educating the youth on how to self-care and regulate, as well as teach us how to get a different perspective on connecting with the family or a youth so that they're able to receive the support to be successful in school. We also have a great partnership with the school administration, such as the principals and teachers. Our teams really get to become part of the school day.
“True trust comes from really listening — not telling the community what’s best for them, but showing up, being present, and walking with families through both the challenges and the triumphs.”
Interviewer: How does collaboration with MPN partners create more impact for mission families?
Nelly: When MEDA does bring partners together, we're able to discuss the data that we're each providing, how things make sense for the network, and how we can support each other in a variety of ways. For example, we can collaborate with each other through peer support, like executive director to executive director, or development officer to development officer.
We also have shared learning around best practices. Our network of partners has grown from a small community to include a more diverse city-wide representation. This is vitally important since many of our youth and families are living beyond the Mission district, but they still come to the Mission district on a constant basis. So, having those relationships and knowing where our partners are also providing services is helpful, whether it’s here or in locations outside the Mission area.
Interviewer: What is one tool or strategy within your organization that helps build trust in your community?
Jessica: One is never over-promising, right? I think that's big. So is also being there for the families when they need us. If it's for parents, it could be a desperate phone call, like ‘I don't know where my kid is at’, and being able to stay calm and guide them. When you go through those experiences, when the bad just happens, that's really when trust starts building.
It’s also incredibly important to us to really hear them out. Sometimes organizations may come in with a solution in their back pocket, thinking they’ll just tell the community what is best for them. But that doesn't inspire trust, right? True trust comes from really listening and not giving a prescribed idea of what success means.
It’s in the way that we treat them and the way that we greet them. It’s reassuring community members that ‘if you don't have your tax forms to register for the program, that it’s going to be okay’. Letting them know that someone will help you figure out where you're at and not to trigger shame is how we approach it. When there are those moments that are awkward, but we're able to continue to push through and support families. That's how trust is built.
“Jamestown has been in the Mission community for over 50 years — not just as a service provider, but as a trusted partner walking alongside our youth and families to build brighter futures together.”
Interviewer: What is one story that has motivated your continued work at Jamestown?
Jessica: One that comes to mind is a newcomer student that started with us in middle school around sixth grade. He came to the country with just his father, had very unstable housing, and did not speak English.
The staff picked up on his needs just by observing him in our after-school program. They then took the initiative to make sure to pack him extra food during the weekends, or find clothes that miraculously showed up at the site that perfectly fit him, and continued to support however possible. To see him go from a very shy newcomer youth to now a leader, speaks volumes. It also shows the success of our work that he understands when he's having a hard time, he has people to go to. Although he's in high school now, he's still so connected to the youth. To be able to see the youth grow through that cycle is what always makes it worth it for me. There are the students who would have struggled or not have found their go-to person as easily, who’ve found their way when they are in our program.
Nelly: A mom was recently registering one of her sons into our program for Summer when she stopped and told me a story about her older son who had been in Jamestown programs.
She attributed his exposure to sports for the first time to Jamestown. He then went on to play baseball in Pee Wee Little League, and then started playing baseball in high school. The mom was just so grateful that he had exposure to different enrichment activities at Jamestown, and she's was so happy about her brilliant son who is now a baseball player. He's looking to get a baseball scholarship when he applies to colleges. I felt all the appreciation and the love that this parent had for all the staff and everything Jamestown has been able to allow her kids to experience so that they can have successful futures. That was just really sweet. She opened up and I loved it. She trusted me.