Riverside Steps Up For Student-Parents

Neither rain nor a resurgence in Covid-19 could stop Riverside Academy’s annual holiday toy drive for students working to make it through high school while raising young children.

Teachers, local families, and other residents pitched in at the alternative high school Saturday with toys and $560 in electronic contributions that will go towards gift cards for seven students and their children.

Principal Derek Stephenson, special education teacher Steve Mikolike, and other staff members organized the event on behalf of seven students who are teen parents, an operation they undertook last year as well.

​“There’s a lot more going on in the community than our eyes see, as educators,” Mikolike said. ​“Whatever we can do to make our students know that they are seen, they are heard, and they are listened to — is what we want to do.”

Mikolike said that the intent of this year’s drive is no different from that of the first toy drive — to give their students hope and support amidst setbacks in their lives related to problems at home, financial struggles, or and ramifications of the pandemic.

“However we can bring smiles to our students’ faces, this is what we want to do,” Mikolike said. ​“We want to acknowledge that we care about them. It’s one thing to say that you care, but it’s another to show up and do something about it.”

Mikolike said that while their teen parents are experiencing additional stress, almost all of their students are currently in their ​“in-between phase” — the here and not yet.

​“They’re in an in-between time where they’re not quite settled in their own life, because they don’t have their own apartment, job, and are going through transitions,” Mikolike said. ​“When you’re only 18 or 19 years old, it’s kind of hard to think that all of the bills are going to be in my name. I think some of our students outgrow their current situations, and we want to be there to get them to the finish line.”

The seven toy-drive babies who will receive their gifts early this week include two girls under the age of 1, four boys all under the age of 2, and a newborn whose gender has not yet been released.

Toy cars, Care Bears, and Barbies overflowed the two tables set up in the Riverside entrance Saturday. NHPS Supervisor of Special Education Kara Buontempo arrived with bags filled with Fisher-Price ring stacking toys and building blocks. Buontempo said that this is an opportunity to show the students what it means to give back to the community.

“We have to support them! I think that the students are just getting back and acclimated after closing down during the pandemic,” Buontempo said. ​“They have little ones, so it’s important.”

John C. Daniels School security officer Alphallah Heard was posted up at the DJ booth Saturday, bringing holiday tunes for arriving donors. He said that a lot of the students have a hard time opening up and all they want is love.

“Some don’t know how to express it, but if you really take the time to find out about them, you’ll get a positive reaction,” Heard said. ​“A lot of the students struggle with homelessness, foster care, a lack of parents at home and then students having to go to live with other family members.”

Heard said that he relates to the kids from his own hardships while growing up in the Bronx. He understands what urban kids are facing and shares his experiences with them.

“I want them to know that they can make it,” Heard said. ​“We just try to bring something to life so that the students have something to look forward to. A lot of these kids don’t have families. We just have to be here for them.”

JoAnne Wilcox, a community health organizer at Clifford Beers, participated Saturday. Her son attended Riverside when he was younger, and she saw firsthand the positive turnaround the school can bring to students. She spent about three years at the school volunteering as a mental health support advocate for students.

“The piece that I think is so critical for young people at this age is relationships. The students know that they can still call me,” Wilcox said. ​“I had one student reach out recently and they’re having a hard time. Then another reached out asking if they could get their cousin involved in Riverside. If you ask her why, it’s because she needs to be seen, heard, and understood to get through the stage that she’s in.”

Riverside staff will be dropping off the toys to the students’ doorsteps early this week just like last year. Mikolike said that the goal is to donate any supplemental toys to Light Haven on Ferry Street and next year to possibly partner with another school.

“Our team is in the process of redesigning our school,” Mikolike said. ​“The more that we can do things like this, the more that they can confide in us and keep increasing our attendance.”