Causes: Human Services, Neighborhood Centers

Mission: The thea bowman center is a community of neighbors, volunteers, and friends of mt. Pleasant dedicated to affirming the spirit, engaging the mind, and nurturing the body. This is achieved through community outreach, food support, children's programs and adult learning opportunities.

Programs: Food pantry: the food support program provides weekly groceries saturdays (11:00 am-2:00 pm) & the last tuesday (6pm) monthly to 5800 mt. Pleasant residents annually. Tbc has a partnership with the cleveland food bank, the primary food linkage source. We receive limited monetary donations and food items from individuals and churches to support the food service operation. The goal of this program is to provide supplemental food support to residents in the 44105 and 44120 zip code area, enabling them to have sufficient food to meet their needs for the month. The population served in 2014 -60+ years 15%, 18-59 49% and 0-17- 36%. Hot buffett lunch: provided every saturday (12 noon to 1pm) by our five partner churches to the elderly, families and children. The program is totally supported by teams of volunteers who prepare and serve a meal to an average of 150 people each week. The goal of this program is to ensure that mt. Pleasant residents will have a healthy and nutritious meal to enjoy every saturday.

children program: 2014 after school: open to youth 5-13 years old from primarily nathan hale school. Youth are engaged in tutoring, help with homework and other structure activities including computer time. This program is supported by volunteers and a couple of paid staff. The goal of this program is to provide a safe and nurturing environment for neighborhood children to grow and learn. Approximately 20 youth attend afterschool monday- thursday each week. They begin the day at the center with a meal from the cleveland food bank. Summer program: the summer program is open to youth 5- 13 from the mt. Pleasant community m-th for 7 weeks enrolling 60 children. This program has been primarily funded by neighborhood connections and the church of the assumption. However, we receive funding through raising activities and donations. The food bank provides meals for any child in the community whether participate in the summer program or not and generally about 60=70 children will participate. The goal of this program is to have a safe and nurturing environment for children to have fun and learn.

adult education: 2014 adult education: open to any adults 18 and older who are interested in completing their high school education or want to improve reading skills or need tutoring support to pass the ged testing. The program offers classes 1-3 pm and 5:30-7:30 evenings. The program is tutor based -one to one tutoring in all of the basis subjects reading/writing, math, social studies and science. The program is managed by a site manager for day and evening and approximately 17 tutors. The goal of the program is to provide adult literacy to students whose goal is to obtain their ged (graduate equivalency diploma) or students who want to develop reading and math skills. About 200 student were enrolled with an average of 15-20 attending class daily. Computer classes: computer classes are supplemental to the adult literacy classes to assist students in developing computer skills for the online ged testing. Computer classes are also available to students who want to improve in their computer skills towards employment opportunities.

youth development services: afterschool: monday- thursday 3:30 - 5:30 computer assistance: the computer learning center is open weekday afternoons after school for students who need to use the computers for schoolwork. Homework assistance: volunteers provide assistance for students in grades k-8 school weekday afternoons after school. Also tutoring is available to children in grades k-8. Activities: games and physical activities: weekday: tuesday 9-10:30. Preschool readiness assistance: grow up great, sponsored by pnc, follows a head start curriculum and utilizes volunteers from pnc and community volunteers who work with children from the oakfield child care center to reinforce learning experiences by using the computer. Field trips: volunteers and staff escort and supervise children on a variety of field trips. They have visited karamu theatre and other sites of cultural events and go on monthly outings through the cleveland metroparks youth outdoors program to learn "survival skills". Some field trips and excursion sites have been the cleveland metroparks zoo, an amish farm, and the natural history museum. Special projects and events: volunteers assist with all these activities "4 h club special activities: volunteers are responsible for overseeing the running of the weekly 4-h meetings and work with the 4h members to plan and carry out special activities using the project books of the 4 h club. These include gardening, photography, cooking, sewing, wood working, and many other possibilities. "service projects: children have helped at the tbc food pantry and the cleveland foodbank. "other activities: children have participated in black history month and parade the circle programs, christmas eve activities, kung fu and swimming. "computer learning lab: open after school. Children have 40 minutes of educational work on the computer and half an hour of computer play. "summer lunch program" all children receive a daily nutritious free lunch each weekday. "special classes/enrichment activities: summer play activities: after lunch children are invited to participate in supervised outdoor games and activities ad indoor arts and crafts projects, music classes, games and activities for several hours. They are currently forming a choir to do performances at holiday time. They will sing and/or learn how to play an instrument.