Waveney Ann Moore: Three decades later, a family center comes of age

The end of the school day brings a burst of activity to the blocks around the James B. Sanderlin Neighborhood Family Center. What unfolds is a ubiquitous scene of yellow buses, crawling cars and crossing guards dutifully shepherding children across the street.

Some of those children will head to the Sanderlin Center, where they’ll do homework, be tutored in math and English and engage in enrichment activities such as gardening, yoga and art. 

It’s one of the important services offered at the 23,000-square-foot center set back from 22^nd Avenue S, in one of St. Petersburg’s traditionally African-American neighborhoods.

It’s a nerve center of sorts.

Executive director Celeste Thomas recently gave me a tour of the sprawling campus, its main two-story building flanked by offices that face a shady courtyard and parking lot. Here residents can access a panoply of services, including referrals for legal help; a computer lab; adult high school; GED classes; a food pantry; help for ex-felons reintegrating into society; a truancy program; and job training for youth.

The facility, which gets 95 percent of its funding from the Juvenile Welfare Board, is one of eight Neighborhood Family Centers. Each site, says JWB, “uniquely serves its diverse citizens and promotes the necessary protective factors that foster child well-being and strengthen families.”

In May, Tampa-based Dress for Success chose the Sanderlin Center for its first Pinellas County boutique, providing free career outfits for women entering or returning to the workplace.

“They are a family center, which I love,” Katie McGill, executive director of Dress for Success, said of her agency’s decision to set up in St. Pete. Specifically, she wanted a location that could offer additional services to Dress for Success clients.

For her part, Thomas was excited to welcome an organization that helps women in their quest for employment and self-reliance. “The last thing you need to worry about is how you look, so this should take one more thing off their plate,” she said.

The League of Women Voters, one of the Sanderlin Center’s collaborative partners, also has space on the property. Most occupants are nonprofit. “But if they’re not nonprofit,” Thomas said, “they have to support our mission. And our mission is, ‘Cultivating a community where children and families are valued, loved and destined to succeed.’”

A few steps from the League of Women Voters’ office is Going Adoption and Surrogacy, whose owner, Connie Going, is a member of the Sanderlin Board.

“I am passionate about the Sanderlin Center. Bringing my business here made perfect sense,” the social worker said. “They are in the community. We can partner together and be stronger together.”

Sara DeRoo, a licensed clinical social worker and the agency’s director, was similarly enthusiastic about the location: “We absolutely love to be in the community in which we work. We absolutely believe in the mission of the center” as a one-stop place for services.

It is a community spot. There’s a dining hall with a full-service kitchen, and residents can rent space for celebrations. It’s also where families and friends can gather after a funeral for the repast, the post-service meal of African-American tradition.

“We have a lot of space,” Thomas said as we walked around the property. “The founders wanted it to be a place where the community could gather.”

It’s unlikely that the parents who navigate the car lines across the street at James B. Sanderlin K-8 IB World School, or park in the center’s parking lot to wait for their offspring, are aware of its history.

It dates back to 1990 and the push for a community center for the Black community, now named, like the neighborhood school, after the civil rights icon who became the first Black county judge and was appointed in 1985 to the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Ray Sanderlin Jr.

His nephew, Raymond Sanderlin Jr., sits on the Sanderlin Center board and spoke of the center’s mission this week. “Throughout Judge Sanderlin’s legal career he fought hard to level the playing field for residents of the community, and that was something that came into play when the Sanderlin Center was founded,” he said.

“And for the past 30 years, we have worked really hard to be a beacon of light for St. Petersburg. Our foundation is based on seven pillars, that being family, arts, employment, economics, health, education and positive values. With the continued support of JWB and other supporters, the parents and families in the community, we continue to strive to pursue our mission.”   

Education is an important piece.

Thomas, a former educator with the Pinellas County School District, is in her third year at the Sanderlin Center. “I really feel like this is where I’ve been meant to be,” she told me during my visit. “I still get to work with children and families.”

As we walked through Sanderlin’s education department, where children met in several rooms, she talked about the afterschool program. “It’s a safe place to have fun and make friends,” she said. “We have tutors who come in. We help them with their homework, reading and math skills.”

There’s also gardening with “Mr. Arthur,” a Caribbean immigrant who shares his knowledge of agriculture with the children. Their harvest of peppers, tomatoes, collard greens and other produce is shared with the community through the center’s food pantry.

Currently 59 children participate in the afterschool sessions. The summer program enrolls more than 100 children and spots fill up fast.

“I’m really proud of the successes we have made and recognize the importance of our founding fathers, who made this opportunity possible for me,” Thomas said of the center. “I recognize that I have some huge shoes to fill. I hope that the work that we’re doing is making them proud of what we are doing in our community. I don’t ever want to lose sight of their vision and the hard work that went into the center 30 years ago.”

Going Adoption and Surrogacy is part of the Sanderlin Center’s expanding services.

“When we opened the agency four years ago, we were not here. We were downtown,” Going said. “As a result, we were not reaching the families and the children and the moms we wanted to reach.”

Her agency’s aim, she said, is not just to place children, but to have an impact on the overall community, to let women know all the options that are available to them. The agency doesn’t want children entering the child welfare system.

She and DeRoo practice what they preach.

“We live and breathe adoptions personally,” said DeRoo, who has 13 children, ages 10 to 32, all of whom are adopted.

Going, who has two adopted sons, noted that there are 120,000 children nationwide, ages 5 to 17, who are waiting for families. Her agency, which helps parents who want to adopt from foster care, also facilitates parenting through surrogacy, working with “gestational carriers” and parents who want to build their families with the help of a surrogate.

The agency also works with birth mothers who choose “an adoption plan” for their babies.

“The one thing that we believe is that women should have all options and if that is abortion, then that is their choice,” DeRoo said.

“We work primarily with mothers who are interested in making an adoption plan for their child. We would never coerce them or guide them to do so. It’s their choice, 100 percent. And we work equally with mothers who decide to parent or make another plan. We would help them to find the resources they need. Typically, we work with mothers towards the end of their pregnancy. We work compassionately and not judgmentally.”

While Going’s agency may represent one of the Sanderlin Center’s foundational pillars of family, Dress for Success without question fulfills that of employment.

McGill explained that a volunteer personal shopper helps women select everything they need for a job interview, from donations of gently used clothing, jewelry, handbags and shoes.

“We give a new bra and we get more thank you letters for the bra than for the clothes,” she said. “Bras are very expensive. They are so grateful for those bras.”

When they get the job, they can return for a week’s worth of clothing. The boutique even carries scrubs for those in the medical field.

But it’s not all about clothing. The agency helps women with resumes and interviewing techniques, as well as support programs after they land their new jobs.

Disadvantaged is not a word that is used in the program, McGill said: “I see women from homeless to PhDs. We help women, period. The biggest thing is confidence. You don’t interview well, if you don’t feel good about yourself.”

The men and women who played a pivotal role in establishing the Sanderlin Center for a struggling community three decades ago might have hoped for such a breadth of services – empowering women, educating children and supporting families – but probably never could have imagined how. 

Katie McGill, executive director of Dress for Success, in the boutique.