Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. (HCZ) has offered education, social-service and community-building programs to children and families since 1970.
Mission
The emphasis of The Children’s Zone® work is not just on education, social service and recreation, but on rebuilding the very fabric of community life.
Company Overview
Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. is an innovative community-based not-for-profit that is working to break the cycle of generational poverty for children and families in some of New York City’s most devastated neighborhoods. HCZ, Inc.’s centers serve more than 16,000 children and adults, including over 10,000 at-risk children.
In the early 1990s, HCZ ran a pilot project that brought a range of support services to a single block. The idea was to address all the problems that poor families were facing: from crumbling apartments to failing schools, from violent crime to chronic health problems.
HCZ created a 10-year business plan, then to ensure its best-practice programs were operating as planned, HCZ was in the vanguard of nonprofits that began carefully evaluating and tracking the results of their work. Those evaluation results enabled staff to see if programs were achieving their objectives and to take corrective actions if they were not.
Through a coordinated effort by hundreds of devoted men and women, The Harlem Children’s Zone has established a new method to end the cycle of generational poverty. By addressing the needs of the entire community, HCZ isn’t simply helping children beat the odds, it’s helping to change the odds.
In 1997, the agency began a network of programs for a 24-block area: the Harlem Children’s Zone Project. In 2007, the Zone Project grew to almost 100 blocks. Today the Children’s Zone® serves more than 8,000 children and 6,000 adults. Overall, the organization serves more than 10,000 children and more than 7,400 adults. The FY 2010 budget for the agency overall is over $75 million. 
Over the years, the agency introduced several ground-breaking efforts: in 2000, The Baby College® parenting workshops; in 2001, the Harlem Gems® pre-school program; also in 2001, the HCZ Asthma Initiative, which teaches families to better manage the disease; in 2004, the Promise Academy, a high-quality public charter school; and in 2006, an obesity program to help children stay healthy.
Under the visionary leadership of its President and CEO, Geoffrey Canada, HCZ continues to offer innovative, efficiently run programs that are aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves.
All HCZ programs are offered free to the children and families of Harlem, which is made possible by donations from people like yourself. To learn more about the Harlem Children’s Zone and how you can help visit www.hcz.org.
