In 1996, at a College commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr., sophomore Rachel Graham '98 announced that she had a dream: COCOA House, an after-school mentoring program that would team Union students with youngsters from Schenectady's Hamilton Hill.
Seven years later, Graham is overseeing COCOA's move to a home of its own at 869 Stanley St. in Schenectady.
“I'm overwhelmed by the favor, kindness, and generosity that this community has shown our program,” Graham says. “People and donations have just appeared. It's more than I could ever have dreamed.”
Until this year, COCOA
(Children of Our Community Open to Achievement) had been housed in the basement of Grace Temple Church of God and Christ at 30 Steuben Street, where Graham's father, Marvin, serves as pastor.
Graham started the program with the idea of offering an alternative. “Having been involved in my father's church, I became acquainted with a lot of kids, and education was not a high priority in many households,” she recalls. “I knew a few girls my age who dropped out and became teenage mothers. I was thinking of a way not so much to intervene in their lives, but to promote education as an alternative for them.”
The house cost about $10,000, most of which was raised through a campaign at the church. Most of the materials and labor for the renovation of the building were donated under the auspices of the Schenectady Inner City Ministry, Graham says.
Union has been closely associated with COCOA House from the beginning. The College supplies the students who volunteer as tutors, about ten to twenty each year who spend one or two afternoons a week with the kids. Last year, Union tutors logged about 700 hours at the center. On campus, COCOA House is a funded student activity with a slate of officers. It also provides funding for field trips including hockey games, museum visits, and plays. Alumni and students account for about half the members of the advisory committee.
Did Graham ever have doubts? “All the time,” she says, “especially after a bad day at the center. But there was enough support and encouragement from others to keep me in it. So many people helped us get
where we are.”
Graham's words on Martin Luther King Day seven years ago still speak to the mission of COCOA: “On Hamilton Hill, we have a role as a College to help them along the way, to show them that life is much broader than what they see.”