Safe and Smart: Making After-School Hours Work for Kids - June 1998

A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Communities Meeting the Need for
After-School Activities


Shalimar Learning Center
T.H.I.N.K. Together
Costa Mesa, California
Contact: Pablo Diaz, 714-543-3807

Located in three apartments in a high-crime, low-income neighborhood in Orange County, California, Shalimar Learning Center provides tutoring in reading and math, homework help, mentoring, English language development classes, and use of the computer lab to over 150 students who drop in daily after school. Students in grades 1-12 who come to the learning center know that schoolwork is the priority at this center, which was created in response to a need expressed by the parents in the neighborhood. Running the center, which is open year-round, five days a week, is a team of 2-5 paid staff and a pool of 75-120 volunteers who commit to two-hours shifts one day per week. The grade point average of teen students at Shalimar Learning Center improved by 34 percent, and not one of the participating students dropped out of school.

Since the opening of the Shalimar Learning Center in 1994, the nonprofit organization T.H.I.N.K. Together has organized community, school, and corporate resources to open four more learning centers in different neighborhoods. The locations include a downtown church, schools, and donated apartment space, and the number of students reaches up to 400 in some sites.
-###-

[Save the Children Out-of-School Time Rural Initiative] [Table of Contents] [The 3:00 Project]