Open Doors & Open Hearts
The Jordan Downs Center, powered by Children Mending Hearts, is now open to help provide the community with what they need.
A Place of Empathy and Kindness
When Children Mending Hearts opened the doors to the Jordan Downs Center, it was with the goal of taking our mission of transformative empathy to the next level. Empathy for others can be the greatest equalizer. This is why we aim to support the community’s growth and help the families of Jordan Downs succeed. We want to provide for not only their basic needs, but their emotional needs, their cognitive needs, and their sense of belonging through appropriate programming.
Empathy is a positive predictor of reading and math test scores, as well as critical thinking skills. It decreases bullying, aggression, prejudice, and racism. It also prepares kids to be global citizens and is a cited strength in leadership success and excellent performance in the job market. Through empathy we can end the cycle of disenfranchisement for good.
Help Us End the Cycle
Thank you for taking the time to gain a deeper understanding of how Children Mending Hearts is helping in Watts, and what you can do to be a part of the change that we are creating.
Life in Jordan Downs, Watts
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Poverty Rates
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Employment
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Health
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Literacy/Education
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Kalilani is a 4th grader, and one of 5 children (ages 5-13). Her family lives in a small apartment that houses her and her siblings, their single mom, and other family members. The apartment is Kalilani’s grandmother’s, as her mom is struggling with housing.
Her family also struggles with hunger and trauma. Kalilani's eyes lit up when she saw the food provided for the kids. She yelled to her mom, “Look what we get to eat!”
Kalilani loves art—when she was little, she would paint with her sister whenever she got scared. She draws Hawaii because it's the place she dreams about when she is scared.
Student’s Stories
Every student who comes into the Jordan Downs Center is truly an inspiration. Here are the stories of two students who have especially stolen our hearts. Click on the arrow next to their names to find out more about them.
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Darrlytino is the youngest of four kids. He has no current father figure and a mom that works long hours doing multiple jobs to help their family survive. He is in 3rd grade, but his reading skills are at a kindergarten level—he can’t read 3 letter words.
At school he is often bullied by the other kids. They try to outcast him by beating him and calling him names. He struggles with anger management due to his trauma and the bullying he receives. Yet with a lot of love he tends to calm down.
Truly, he is a great kid at heart who wants to do the right things, but his small scope of experiences hinders him from growing into the empathetic loving human he wants to be.
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Marilyn is one of seven children in her home, where only their dad works. Their mother is medically unable to, and stays home with the kids.
Resources can be tight in their family, and Marilyn always looks out for her younger siblings and makes sure they are provided for. She and two of her siblings are often the first to arrive at the Center and the last to leave each day.
Marilyn wants to be the first in her family to go to college, and having someone help her one-on-one with her homework at the Center ensures she stays on track.
Being the Change
Children Mending Hearts believes in showing empathy through action. It is through our connections with others, and the kindness that we show them, that we are able to empower those in need and bring change to the world.
With the Jordan Downs Center, we aim to uplift and bring real results to a community that has been plagued with all of the social and economic disenfranchisement that Jordan Downs and the greater Watts community has suffered.
We will accomplish this by finding and filling the gaps in what is currently available as resources. The extra time, attention, and compassion that we share will help to close the distance—so we no longer have children who look at their future and only see unavoidable difficulties and pain.
With each success we see, that’s another step towards true equity and real justice.
“Children Mending Hearts brings that hope and life that we need. We don’t have much, but we want the best for our children. They provide top tier services and programs to those they encounter with a warm, welcoming atmosphere and great empathy. That support that Children Mending Hearts has brought into our environment, we needed that.”
— Cartashia P., whose family has lived in Jordan Downs for 5 generations
Daily Educational Offerings
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Homework Help
Research has shown that learning loss is a serious concern in today's children, especially in the wake of COVID-19. This goes even more so for students like the ones in Jordan Downs. We offer homework help to make sure that our students have the same opportunity to succeed that their more affluent peers may have. This will allow our students to work to extend their learning through the year.
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Accelerated Reader
Students who don’t read proficiently by 3rd grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma, and kids who become illiterate adults are more likely to be stuck in the cycle of poverty with limited opportunities for employment. The Jordan Downs Center has a library where students progress is tracked with the goal of making sure that every child is hitting appropriate benchmarks and learning.
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Tech Class
Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) Education teaches critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem solving. It also gives students hands-on learning experience, and increases their chances of finding a career in STEAM fields. The Jordan Downs Center offers different STEAM classes for our students, especially in technology. One example of this is our Girls Who Code club that is working to close the gender gap in tech in K-12 classrooms.
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Art Classes
Arts have always been at the center of Children Mending Hearts, going back to our origins of an art exchange between local children and those in war-torn countries. We can see from our years of work that art encourages connection, compassion, and empathy. Which is why we are so proud to offer a variety of weekly art classes for all ages at the Jordan Downs Center.
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Physical Activity
It’s a priority of ours to provide a safe and supervised space for the children of Jordan Downs to be active. Sports and physical play gives students an increased sense of community and teamwork, which will create a more peaceful world. Physical activity helps develop motor skills, socialization, personal awareness, language skills, creativity and problem solving skills.
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And More!
It takes a village, which is why at Jordan Downs Center we are proud to offer even more classes, events, and programs with the help of our volunteers and partners. These include classes in performance, creative arts, fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle guidance for underserved children. We are constantly developing ways to get new offerings for our members, and with your help can get even more.
The Center of our Hearts
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Membership
Since opening the Center, we’ve gained over 225 families as members, with the expectation of increasing our membership families by 40% this quarter (which would be a 70% increase of individual members!) On an average, we see 15% of our families each day.
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Food Donations
Food insecurity is a major concern in Jordan Downs. 85% of families in Watts rely on food stamps to survive. This is why we provide food to our students daily. We also distribute free boxes of breakfast foods to 1/3rd of our membership families each month.
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Regular Events
In addition to our large events, we put on smaller events each month. The demand is so great, we often have to put families on wait lists. At our Mother’s Day hair braiding event, we not only hit capacity but sent home supplies with twice the women we could serve.
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Adult Basketball
The Jordan Downs Center has a full size gymnasium that is open daily for free play basketball. This is one of the most popular offerings we have, and is a preventative, interventional, and rehabilitative way to combat gang involvement and violence.
Memories Made in Jordan Downs
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Back to School
In August 2021, before the Center had opened, we coordinated a large-scale back to school giveaway for the children of Jordan Downs. Over 300 kids got backpacks and all the necessary school supplies for the 2021/2022 school year. Their families also received food, diapers, and other supplies!
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Thanksgiving
On Thanksgiving, we made sure that the family meals for hundreds of Jordans Downs residents were taken care of. Everyone received a turkey, along with a bag containing stuffing, cream of chicken soup, canned yams, chicken broth, yellow corn meal, cornbread mix, gravy, rolls, and macaroni and cheese.
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Breakfast with Santa
Breakfast with Santa was an incredible experience for the kids of Jordan Downs! Hundreds of families came out in late December to not only meet and get photos with Santa, but they got a full breakfast. Literally thousands of presents were given to the kids so they would have gifts for the holidays.
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Spring Celebration
At the Jordan Downs Spring Celebration in April, over 300 children and their families came to the Center. They played holiday themed games to win raffle prizes, did themed art projects, took photos with the Easter Bunny, and each child took home an Easter Basket stocked with goodies!
Your Help. Their Home. Our Hearts.
100% of Your Gifts Support the CMH Mission
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With your help, we can continue to expand the help we’re able to provide. This includes new offerings, as well as the expansion of what we currently have. This way we can accept more students, decrease the student/teacher ratio, and more.
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Jordan Downs has 2,137 residents comprising 629 households. According to the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, previously only 33% were utilizing services offered to them. We’ve already matched this number, but we want to make sure we’re helping every family we can.. With additional resources, we’ll be able to reach even more families.
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One of the goals of Children Mending Hearts in Jordan Downs is to create sustainability at the Center in regards to our programs, the resources we provide, and the overall longevity of the Center. We aim to create a safe space that will be there for the community for years to come.
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The Jordan Downs community is diverse and vibrant, and in providing for them, Children Mending Hearts wants to make sure that they are properly represented. We hire from the community, and many of our offerings are decided upon because of requests directly from our members and other residents.
Power Their Hearts
