CentroNía (formerly Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center)
http://www.centronia.org
1420 Columbia Road, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-332-4200

Founded in 1986

Founder, Executive Director: Beatriz (BB) Otero
Chair of the Board: Joanne Williams
Staff: 102 full time, 7 part time, and 10 AmeriCorps members; 150 volunteers
2005 budget: $9 million

Mission and History
The mission of CentroNía (formerly Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center) is “to create a community of learning for children, youth, families, and staff.”

BB Otero founded the learning center in 1986 as a childcare center for 15 children and housed it in a local church. The organization grew organically in the Columbia Heights/Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, developing new programs to meet the growing needs of children and families. The learning center now provides programs for over 700 infants, children, youth, and their families. Many “CentroNía kids” have grown up in the center and several high school graduates and college students return to work or volunteer there.

In 1995, Bell Atlantic donated a boarded-up switching station to the learning center. The center quickly renovated a small part of the building to move into and then in 2000 raised approximately $2.3 million of the $5.6 million renovation cost (the balance was a Community Development Block Grant and a bank loan) to completely renovate the 73,000-square-foot facility, which today includes a childcare center, a dance studio, a community technology lab, a commercial kitchen, and a rooftop playground (as well as three nonprofit tenants).

Services

• Learning Center includes a full day infant/toddler and preschool program, and a comprehensive out of school time development program for school age children and youth.
   
• Family/Community Development provides parent workshops, resources and referrals, evening and weekend tutoring and literacy training for school age children and adults as well as other adult education courses. This program includes the SPARK initiative which aims at supporting school readiness for three-year-old children.
   
• Professional Development Academy provides parents and community members with training opportunities such as the Child Development Associate credential (CDA).
   
• DC Bilingual Public Charter School In the fall of 2004, the school, directed by a board of directors and managed by CentroNía, began offering a full bilingual academic program to 122 pre-school and kindergarten children. DCBPCS will grow by one grade per year reaching fifth grade by 2009.