In the last four years, the Hispanic population has quadrupled in Northwest Arkansas. Additionally, the Laotian and Marshallese populations continue to grow.  These demographic changes have produced a challenge for local schools.  Many ethnic students have had a difficult time transitioning forward in their educational process and as a result are deficient in english, math, science, and reading.  These learning changes, if not met head on, will continue to escalate and lead these ethnic students to a career path of hopelessness and possibly crime.  There is currently not enough help to engage and provide personalized academic training needed to meet these student’s needs.

The Destiny Center is committed to the academic success and healthy development of every 6th-12th grade student. The Destiny Center envisions a high-performing academic center characterized by challenging programs, individual tutoring and mentoring, personal support for each student, and individually realized social responsibility. The Destiny Center will collaborate with families, communities, and other like-minded organizations.

The Destiny Center:
• Promotes the academic success and healthy development of all 6th – 12th grade students in our program by providing a positive atmosphere where learning and success are encouraged.
• Desires to engage and enhance the lives of students through visoneering, character development, leadership development, and practical hands on opportunities to help each child reach there destiny.
• Desires to continue to equip each child with life training after graduation from The Destiny Center through mentoring, college bound programs, and by providing academic scholarships.
• Will succeed by collaborating with other national and local organizations to provide professional development for educators, build school support networks, and conduct research.

• Academic enhancement and mastery
• Parental involvement
• Mentoring
• Leadership development
• Career development
• Life Skills
• Internships
• Support Services
• Employment opportunities

The Destiny Center is a place designed to cultivate and nurture dreams by believing in every child that we are privileged to serve.  In the heart of every child are God inspired dreams, gifts and talents. These precious components must be recognized, guided and celebrated.  The statistics show now that there are currently children in this region of N.W. Arkansas that represent almost every major continent of the planet. We must be diligent and focused as we approach some of the most trying days of our nation’s history. We must educate the mind and the heart simultaneously. We must engage these young people’s thought process by letting them discover what their passions and hopes are for this life’s journey.

We desire to engage young people and their families who are financially, academically, and socially challenged. Our desire is to break the cycle of poverty by providing educational tutoring, mentoring, character development, leadership, and life skills to these disadvantaged minority students (grades 6th-12th) in Northwest Arkansas.

Specific groups targeted for the pilot program are Hispanic/Latino, Laotian and Marshallese, and African -American youth who are seen at risk. Our appeal is to all youth who need help to reach their intended destiny. We will broaden our scope to include all children but we must be focused demographically.

These young people are living in impoverished homes and desperately need a hand up not a hand out. We have a real focus not to become the one stop shop for everything, but instead to help them get on their feet by partnering with other like minded organizations with other supplemental needs. However, we at the same time will train the next generation with the values of educational competency, hard work, and the true value and personal experience of community service. We have the responsibility to help but not enable and I realize that is a process but yet it a strategic focus to engage, empower and release each child and family to be productive citizens.
The program will also serve as a mentoring and life-skills program for middle school-aged students, following them through college, into internships, and their eventual graduation into the workforce.

These young people and their families who can’t read, are financially challenged, and socially disconnected need help now not later. We will strive for excellence as we additionally provide bi-lingual remediation along with family counseling and workshops to help better integrate each family into a new culture…..A new way of thinking……. Yes, a winning, caring, loving, uplifting culture that says “all things are possible if you just believe”

Today is the day and now is the time to shape the next generation through how and what we teach the mind and train the heart.