HEARTWORKS AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM

Heartworks is a nonprofit community service agency founded by a pediatrician Dr. Sue Lee in Bayboro, NC to serve the needs of disadvantaged youth and their families in Pamlico County and surrounding areas. They offer After School Programs, a Fall Day Camp and Summer Learning Program for underserved students, many in foster care, from Kindergarten through eighth grade. Like pediatrician Dr. Nadine Harris, featured in the film Resilience, which links Adverse Childhood Experiences ( ACES) to health problems later in life, Dr. Lee saw an unmet need in her community and chose to do something about it.

Their existing building, a former auto showroom, was noisy and overcrowded and an asphalt parking lot served as their playground. Though the budget was tight, we saw an opportunity to make a real difference by providing a more nurturing, calm environment centered around access to nature for these kids and their teachers.

Our first move was to replace the parking lot with communal green space and gather the classrooms around it. A generous deep porch surrounds this common green, providing a covered outdoor area for a performance stage, eating, teaching, playing, and other activities. Built-in benches store materials and adjacent walls offer space for display, white boards. outdoor movies, etc. In addition to the shared courtyard space, each classroom has double doors opening up to its own backyard garden in the rear, enabling outdoor learning tailored to each age group.

We optimized daylighting with large clerestory windows that wash the roof trusses above and cast everchanging patterns below. Each classroom is painted with calming colors and has a wide variety of places for different sized groups to gather, both inside and out.