Is it possible to turn at-risk kids' lives around, neighborhood by neighborhood? That's the premise of President Obama's Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, which has given out multimillion-dollar grants since 2010 to umbrella groups around the country that focus on providing a comprehensive list of services to children in specific neighborhoods.
 
The DC Promise Neighborhoods Initiative focuses on Ward 7's Kenilworth-Parkside, where one in four households live below the poverty line. 
 
With a $25 million, five-year grant recently awarded by the Education Department, DCPNI is poised to make a dramatic difference in the lives of the kids in Kenilworth-Parkside. Here, the focus is on "five promises to two generations"--mothers and children.

Elevation DC spoke to DCPNI's executive director, Ayris Scales, about her hopes for the neighborhood.
 
What is DCPNI?
Dcpni is a nonprofit organization that's working to increase high school graduation rates for children who live in Kenilworth-Parkside. We're focused on the two-generation model…we're looking at investing into the lives of children and their mothers.
 
What are the issues facing the neighborhood?
Ninety percent of the households are headed by single women. We have high teen pregnancy rates, high dropout rates. Every social element you can think of, we've got it.
 
Kenilworth Elementary School is scheduled to close. Why are school closures a problem?
Kenilworth Elementary is closing. Our office is located in the school. [DC schools] Chancellor [Kaya Henderson] has expressed that she wants to support DCPNI in any way that she can as well as the redevelopment of the community. We are anticipating we can stay.
 
I don't think of it in terms of what's good or bad for the neighborhood. She knows better than I the effects of her schools needing to be closed. What I do know is there are other schools we work with. We are really happy that the children who went to Kenilworth are being transferred to a school nearby so they can continue to benefit from our services.
 
As far as the school building from a community development perspective, nobody wants vacant, blighted buildings in their community. We're excited we have an opportunity to stay in that building to keep the space active and vibrant.
 
Schools are closing across the country. We have to look at it in a systemic way. Like, why are schools closing? Why are they performing below expectations? Why are enrolment rates decreasing? Why are the facilities falling apart? Why are our children not prepared?
 
What is DCPNI's focus?
Cradle through college and into career. Right now we're primarily focused in the world of early education, for our youngest children, infants up to about 3rd grade.

The majority of our efforts is making sure our youngsters have additional resources. For instance Neval Thomas [Elementary] needed additional support with literacy. We helped that school identify an organization, AARP Experience Corps, that could come in and provide those services. As a result, their test scores went up. We funded that, we supported that, we brokered that partnership. We have more than 30 different organizations that we work with as partners who we have within the schools, in the community. We fill gaps and services that our children wouldn't necessarily have access to because the schools don't have the resources to pay for these additional resources.
 

"We have high teen pregnancy rates, high dropout rates. Every social element you can think of, we've got it."

At Kenilworth, we brought in an additional math tutor to work with children, particularly the grades preparing for the DC standardized test. We didn't want them to be distracted or not do well just because the school's closing.
 
Where do you see the neighborhood in five years? Twenty years?
I see it being a community that is, you know, very much on the right path. We're trying to create this college-going culture where college-going is the norm and not the exception.
 
Our goal is that five years from now, our families are more aware of DCPNI and the services we have to bring to children and our schools and that people are starting to have those conversations around college readiness. And then twenty years from now, we're not having those conversations but we're actually doing it. Those children we're working with today have gone through the pipeline and are coming back to the community.
 
One of our promises is the opportunity to give back. Part of our mission is the children we support through high school and college come back and become part of civic life in the community. It's about paying it forward and becoming life-long members of the community. It's an investment in every child. If every child decides they're going to leave, how do you break that cycle? You can't. You have to create opportunities that get them so excited they want to come back.
 
This interview has been edited and condensed.