THE NEIGHBORHOOD of about 5,000 residents covers about 2 square miles. Despite challenges that make it difficult for people to emerge from poverty, Chicora-Cherokee has some assets that other high-poverty communities don’t. One is the setting of Nche-Eyabi’s class: the Clemson University Zucker Family Graduate Education Center, a $21.5 million educational facility on the banks of the Cooper River. Another is Metanoia, a nonprofit organization that has invested in the community’s people, institutions and homes for the past 16 years. Third, Chicora-Cherokee has two thriving companies in its own backyard — Boeing and Blackbaud — that believe in making a positive difference.

Working together, they’re offering programs designed to help the neighborhood’s children build confidence and skills in science, technology, engineering and math — STEM — which employers say are in high demand and crucial to the future workforce.

Students who once could only see the Zucker Family Graduate Education Center from outside — or didn’t even know it existed — are now taking courses inside the building, says Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, who is based at the center as executive director of community and corporate development.

“We want to influence these children and help them realize they can do anything, even something that may seem intimidating at first, like science, because all of it is a lot of fun,” she says.

A PLACE OF POTENTIAL

The Rev. Bill Stanfield began Metanoia with his wife, Evelyn Oliveira, in 2002 shortly after he graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary. They were hired by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina after a demographic study found that the state’s highest concentration of child poverty was in the Chicora-Cherokee area.

Stanfield took a year to listen to the community, then assembled a board of directors from the neighborhood and began Metanoia with an after-school program. Several programs have since been added, including Freedom School and a housing initiative that has helped to rehabilitate 150 homes, he says.

Stanfield’s philosophy is to focus on the community’s assets, including its people and churches, and build on them. “By working with the community as a place of potential and capacity, rather than just problems, you see things rise to the top,” he says. “You can invest in them, and they begin to generate a return for the community.”

Stanfield says a good example of that philosophy in action is LaShay Norton, a reading coach at Mary Ford Elementary. She grew up in Chicora-Cherokee and stays in touch through the church she attends. Her two children are involved with Metanoia, including daughter Makenzie, a Coding for Kids student.

Norton began as a teaching assistant in Coding for Kids in its inaugural year in 2017 and returned in 2018 as an assistant lecturer.

“It’s allowing students to have an awareness of opportunities other than what they see day to day,” she says. “If they have exposure to it, they can dream even bigger. I like the idea of exposing kids to that kind of activity.”

Makenzie’s take on the camp? “Awesome,” she says.

Makenzie says she learned, “You always have to have a variable. You have to be exact with it.”

COMMITTING TO A SHARED COMMUNITY

Jessica Jackson, director of global engagement in Boeing’s southeast region, says the company invested in Coding for Kids because it was a way to give back to the community while inspiring and engaging underrepresented youth in STEM, one of the company’s priorities in charitable giving.

The company liked that Coding for Kids brought together several collaborators, is sustainable, will result in evidence-based outcomes and has the potential to be offered on a larger scale.

“This could expand beyond Chicora and could be replicated in other neighborhoods in the North Charleston community and beyond,” she says. “Being able to make an impact on our future workforce is really important. We’re excited to be a part of this community and this program, which is making a positive impact on these kids’ lives.”

Mary Beth Westmoreland, chief technology officer of Blackbaud, says the program reaches children at a critical age for them to think about careers in engineering and science. It also allows students to hone their skills, learn something new and build their confidence in the engineering discipline while keeping them active over the summer so they don’t lose a step academically.

“We need more of what Clemson is doing,” Westmoreland says. “When leaders in academia and business commit to their shared community, the result is something magical. Clemson is bringing together top thinkers and innovators across Charleston to inspire children, demonstrate just how brilliant and creative they are and get them excited about careers in engineering.”