Charlene McKenzie has a story for every student in the pictures on her office wall. Pointing to a picture of an African-American girl kayaking down a river during an Institute for College Preparation trip, the program’s director, McKenzie said, “We almost had to turn around and go back on that trip. The poor girl was hyperventilating and couldn’t calm down, yelling that she could never get on a plane. 95 percent or more of the children we work with have never been on a plane, have never even left D.C.”
But, thanks to a $10 million grant from the Meyers Foundation, on Saturday the MICP announced good news for some of the District’s most underserved public school students. The foundation, newly named the Meyers Institute, will use the gift to more than double the number of students currently in the program.
MICP’s program, which previously followed one group of students from 7th grade through their first year of college. Starting next fall, a new class of seventh graders will be added each fall until the program has students in 7th through 12th grades, enrolling more than 500 students over the next ten years.
“This gift gives us our first realistic shot to show what we can do with full support,” Dennis Williams, the director of the Center for Multicultural Equity Access, said.
MICP combines Saturday classes, summer programs and study abroad trips to prepare students for college. Primarily, the students come from middle schools in Ward 7.
“You’re talking about raw talent,” McKenzie said. “We say that if you give us enough time and energy, we can help you graduate middle school and high school and go on to college.”
So far, MICP has had 98 percent of its 200 students graduate from high school, and 85 percent of students in its first two classes have graduated from college within the first five years of enrolling.
“The students are very bright and talented, but have had a lot of grief and loss in their life, especially loss,” McKenzie said. “They’re regular teenagers, but they’re having to struggle with so many socioeconomic issues. Just walking down the street to school they see everything.”
