Maranathan Family Learning Center and Academy

Where do at-risk youth, expelled from school, rejected by traditional education systems turn when all options have been exhausted? Enter Maranathan Family Learning Center and Academy, a place dedicated to serving the wounded, looking for a place to belong. Its mission literally saves lives, and its relationship with the Community Foundation has helped reach more students in need.

“For nearly 30 years, I have had a trajectory-changing, uplifting, extremely positive relationship with the Community Foundation for which I am very grateful.” That’s Maranathan Family Learning Center and Academy founder and executive director Donna Dukes.

This partnership started in the early 90s when Maranathan Academy was in its infancy and the Community Foundation gave it one of its very first grants. The school’s initial Kingston location was badly in need of adequate lighting and fencing, and with that first grant, they were able to install these crucial items. “You couldn’t tell us anything! We felt like we were a sprawling university,” laughs founder and executive director Donna Dukes. “Once we got that grant, though, we were able to tell other grant organizations that the Community Foundation gave us some funding, and it really made a difference.”

Since then, the Community Foundation has remained a steadfast partner of Maranathan Academy, a nonprofit, private alternative school specializing in critically at–risk youth and adult students. Most recently, Maranathan Academy was awarded $30,000 over three years to continue to help expand its staff in strategic and significant ways. “After the initial grant, donor-advised funds at the Foundation started providing support as well. And it’s just been incredible,” Dukes says. “We were able to get a career and college readiness counselor. We were able to get an assistant director. Now we’ve been able to retain a social worker. I’m eternally grateful.” Throughout its history, the Community Foundation and its donors have granted Maranathan a total of $474,000.

A full-time social worker who can also serve as an onsite crisis counselor is crucial because Maranathan Academy is the only private school in the Birmingham area that accepts students who have been expelled for weapons-related or violent offenses. A much-needed source of hope, the school is frequently a deciding factor in the lives of critically at-risk students and their families. It now boasts an 85% graduation rate with most of those students going on to college, trade schools, or military service. For Dukes, her mission is simple – to save the lives of her students through the transformative power of education.

Now that she has been able to create and establish these staff positions with the support of the Community Foundation, Dukes says that she is able to go out and seek new or additional funding to keep those positions afloat. “It’s an amazing, amazing thing.”

This instance is just one example of how this longtime partnership has been an invaluable part of the success of Maranathan Academy and the thousands of young people and adults who have been through its program. “The Community Foundation makes you feel as though your organization is a part of a bigger picture. And, that even though it is a grant making organization, it is heavily invested in your success even if it turns out your organization is not a good fit for a particular cycle,” she says. “I love the fact that the staff continues to reach out to you, communicate, and invite you to events even when you don’t have a current grant. It really makes you feel as though you have a support system.”

And developing strategic partnerships is just one of the many things Dukes has turned to the Community Foundation for over the years. She says that she appreciates the consideration it gives to organizations that may not be as large as others, identifying them as being valuable and worthy of assistance and help. “The Community Foundation makes it very evident that they allow you the leeway to bring innovative or, in some cases, unorthodox programs to them and that funds are available for those who seek to truly make a better world.”