May 2008

Growing a Community at Crossway

By Erica Gruenewald

On a sunny day in Kensington, you can find children hard at work in the garden at Crossway Community. The children, who attend the Montessori school at Crossway, care for the garden, share discoveries with their parents and happily eat the fruits of their labor. From the grins on their faces to the dirt on their hands, you might imagine that each of these children has had a perfectly happy childhood. But for many of them, life hasn’t always been easy.

Crossway Community is a living-and-learning organization that both houses and educates at-risk families. More than 40 families – many of them young, single mothers and children – live on campus. The parents work and take classes, while their children attend the popular, avant-garde Montessori school. Many of the participants of Crossway Community have struggled to overcome adversity. Some families are still dealing with the effects of domestic abuse or trauma. Some are coping with the added financial and emotional stress of single parenthood. All of them are ready for change.

Coming Together

Fortunately, they’ve found a place to grow as families at Crossway Community. The center is not a shelter, nor is it transitional housing. Instead, Crossway is a school for families. During a three-year commitment, families learn the tools and techniques that their life experiences may have left out. Parents are taught how to encourage proper sleep habits, nutrition, reading, physical education, discipline, and even potty training. More importantly, they’re given a hand as they experience the crash course of parenting that so many families are familiar with.

“Our center is rooted in the fundamental belief that all families, regardless of class or culture, care about the same things,” says Kathleen Guinan, founder and owner of Crossway Community. Before opening the program in the summer of 1990, she and cofounder Anne Byrne spent two years asking parents in all walks of life what they most want. The responses were nearly unanimous.

“All parents want their children to grow up in a safe neighborhood. They want quality education and good employment. They want to be able to express themselves and have healthy friendships and relationships. They want a community,” says Guinan.

A Need for Change
These needs are much more urgent in some families than others. Because of the high cost of living and child care in Maryland, the child welfare system often forces struggling families to fend for themselves. In Maryland, nearly 10 percent of children are living below the poverty line. For families that fight daily to make ends meet, high quality education, health care and child care are often not available.
The real injustice is that children are left to deal with the consequences.

One solution is a revitalization of community, and the residents of Kensington are rallying behind Crossway in a big way. Nearly 20 years ago, Guinan and Byrne transformed the 14-acre site of a forgotten, abandoned elementary school into a forward-thinking family education center. Now, Crossway Community, like its gardens, is a seedbed that is slowly transforming the surrounding neighborhood.

Living and Learning

In addition to housing, Crossway Community also provides top-notch early education for children from the ages of 3 months to 6 years. Young children living at the center attend the on-campus Montessori school along with children from the local neighborhood. The Montessori philosophy emphasizes the individuality and unique potential of each child. No child is looked upon as a “problem child.” Instead, the teachers encourage children to work at their own pace. The result is a personalized and high-quality education that fosters confidence and self-efficacy.

“We have high expectations of the children,” says Byrne, who was trained as a Montessori teacher before she helped to envision the school at Crossway Community. At Montessori, the children develop confidence because their teachers and parents show a great deal of confidence in them. “The children come up to the standards you expect of them,” she says. “They really do.”

The Montessori school at Crossway Community has been so successful, in fact, that people are moving to the neighborhood simply to take part in the program. With 90 children currently enrolled, the school has doubled in size since first opening and is expanding even more this fall. While 40 percent of the children attend on a scholarship, many live off-campus and pay tuition, as they would at any private school. In addition to incredible child care and education, the children also gain an important awareness of social diversity. Both parents and children understand the value of bringing families together across class and culture. The school teaches that social justice is not an add-on to a curriculum, but how you live your life.

A Community in Bloom

Now, the children and families at the Montessori school and Crossway Community are living and learning together. “As mothers, we’ve all been there,” says Guinan, who has four children of her own. “We all know what it’s like to be overworked and overwhelmed.”

But for moms who lack financial, familial, and communal support, there’s an added feeling of being devalued and isolated in a social and political system that’s failed them. The intricately connected community that now exists in Kensington reaches out to those parents who often feel invisible, because that’s what communities do.

A local Girl Scout troop raised enough money to provide each child living at Crossway Community with a spring basket containing a brand-new copy of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and handmade bookmarks. Just before the winter holidays, students from the University of Maryland held a craft session to help local children create gifts for their families. A group of neighborhood mothers, known as the “Mom’s Core,” holds classes that teach young mothers fundamental – and sometimes just fun – life skills, such as cooking, sewing and knitting.

From all parts of the community, people have made it clear that Crossway is initiating a powerful change, and they want to be a part of it.

To contribute to Crossway Community or become a part of their on-campus program or school, call 301-949-0512, or visit www.crosswaycommunity.org.

Erica Gruenewald is a Washington Parent intern.