Twice a week after school for the past few months, a group of preteens have gathered in a brightly-painted basement youth center beneath the gray streets of the Knox-Gates neighborhood to create multimedia “time capsules” about their lives. 

The multimedia-focused program is managed by the Knox-Gates Neighborhood Association, which recently recovered responsibility for running the COVE youth center, after handing it off to the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC) just two years ago.

The program is thriving for now under its new (old) leadership, but its future remains uncertain.

The Knox-Gates Neighborhood Association founded the COVE youth center in 1988. But funding and management issues forced the association to ask MMCC, the largest community center in the area, to take over the program in 2007. 

This past fall, MMCC asked the association to take the program back, although he MMCC will still provide financial management.

Historically, the COVE has been open five days a week for after-school free play, and has run separate programs for young children and teenagers, with each serving about 30 kids. Now, due to limited funding, the COVE will only be running a program for teens and preteens.

New COVE Director Wayne Hodge said they devoted resources to Knox-Gates adolescents instead of schoolchildren because “they are at that age where we’re losing them to the streets.”

The COVE program for 11- to 14-year-olds has been up and running two days a week now for several months, and a program for older teens which matches participants to stipended internships began with an orientation last week on Feb. 4.

The younger group is currently using video cameras and FinalCut Pro, the latest in editing software, to make multi-media “time capsules” that communicate something about themselves to the larger world.

Mahagony B, a COVE assistant, hopes the project will encourage kids to “look at the COVE as not just a place to relax and do homework, but also a place to express themselves creatively.”
She and Hodge plan to string these capsules together to create “a larger portrait of the community.”

That immediate community is inside the Knox-Gates triangle, a densely populated, low-income neighborhood bordered by bustling Jerome Avenue to the east and parkland to the north and south. Neighborhood cliques, like the M-MOB, and rival drug dealers in the area, are always recruiting new young people.

Two years ago, Michael Santiago, a 17-year-old former COVE participant who had become wrapped up in the neighborhood’s thriving drug trade, was shot in the back just across the street from the COVE entrance.

Matthew Searles, a preteen who has been coming to the COVE for five years, is grateful to the center for keeping him off the streets. 

“It’s a nice place to hang out, and to keep myself from getting in trouble,” Matthew said. “Usually when I’m outside, I get into trouble. When I’m here, I don’t do those things.”

Co-founder Lyn Pyle said local youth have difficulty participating in nearby programs because of the rival cliques.

Hodge, who is trained as an artist, hopes that in being a safe haven, the program will teach them the value of creative work.

“We want them to learn skills, but also attach importance to that work,” he said.

While the COVE has managed over the years with a combination of city funding and private grants, its survival is uncertain.

Winston Johnson, the owner of the building where the program is located, provides the COVE with free space for the time being. Program funding, from Councilman Oliver Koppell and St. James Church, is only temporary.

One hope is that the program will benefit from a new partnership with CTM Dreams, which is connected to the celebrated Harlem TRUCE program. However, both Hodge and Pyle are uncertain about where funding for future programs will come from.

For now, Hodge is just working hard to engage the kids he currently has, saying, “We’ve done our best to cultivate a safe space.”

For more information on the COVE, call Wayne Hodge at (718)?405-1312.