In Mechanicsville, a neighborhood just south of downtown Atlanta, poverty reigns. Severe economic decline, caused in part by the construction of Interstate I-75\/I-85 in the mid-20th century, combined with population migration, devastated the area. As a result, residents today struggle to pay bills and feed their families \u2014 and they deal with insurmountable stress and trauma. For those raising children, the burden becomes greater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOftentimes inner city kids who live\nnear or below the poverty lines go home to\na family that\u2019s struggling,\u201d says Gemorial\nJohnson \u201905, director of Educare Atlanta.\nThe school serves low-income children in\nMechanicsville, and Johnson is seeking to\nchange daily life for parents and children in\nthe largely underserved community.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou have a child who has this great school environment, who goes home and all of the great experiences they had during the day get wiped out,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes families are not sure where they\u2019re going to live the next month,\u201d Johnson says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make that transition from school to home life easier on its 200 students,
who range from infants to age 5, Educare employs the two-generation model for families. This means providing equal support to both parents and children. Parents have access to counseling services, financial literacy courses, and better employment opportunities. The local food bank brings shelf-stable items directly to the school, so parents can take what they need while picking up their children. And, health care for children is often available at the school during school hours through Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta, which houses an RN on site at the school. Therefore, parents can focus on working during the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Students receive individualized\nattention at Educare, thanks in part to its\npartnership with Georgia State University\n(GSU). Research students from GSU\nfrequently come to Educare to observe\nand interact with the children, tracking\neach child\u2019s educational growth. They\nperiodically give their findings back to\nEducare, so the data can inform changes to\nthe curriculum. \u201cIt allows us to see which\nchildren are struggling,\u201d Johnson says.\n\u201cWe can take a deeper look into what\u2019s\nhappening with a child.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Johnson, going into work each day isn\u2019t just about making the lives of children better. It\u2019s also about reclaiming his own childhood. \u201cI grew up in a community very similar to this one. I was able to get to Colgate by doing well in school, but also being an athlete,\u201d says the sociology and anthropology major. \u201c[After college,] I didn\u2019t have the resources to be able to go out of the country and study anthropology. I needed to come back home and work.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His backup plan was childhood education, so he started teaching at Sheltering Arms, which would later become Educare Atlanta, in 2005. He moved up the ladder, leaving the school in 2015 to take an assistant director position at Bright Horizons, another education center in Atlanta. In August 2021, he came back to Educare, this time in the top position. \u201cThis is coming full circle, being able to go back to a place where I helped start, helped build. [I\u2019m helping to] make it better and have a bigger impact on children and families.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He adds that because most of the school\nchildren and families are African American:\n\u201cFor the little boys here, or even for the\nyoung dads here, to see someone who looks\nlike them in this position is a really powerful\nthing. That\u2019s one of the things that makes\nme really proud.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gemorial Johnson ’05 is seeking to change daily life for parents and children in the largely underserved community of Mechanicsville. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":8722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[354,813,50,636,756,215],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-8319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-alumni","tag-community-support","tag-diversity","tag-family","tag-inclusion","tag-poverty"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-2ab","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/02\/Matt-Odom-Photography-1374.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8319"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8878,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions\/8878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}