Lisa Reisman photo
At a LEAP-organized Halloween party at the Q House last fall.
LEAP Executive Director Henry Fernandez at Monday's Q House board meeting.
A local youth tutoring and recreation nonprofit’s bid to keep the Q House humming with more bingo, ballet, farmers markets and line dancing took a big leap forward this week — as the Dixwell Avenue community center’s board voted to recommend approval of a new five-year, $500,000 contract between LEAP and the city.
That was the outcome of Monday’s latest regular monthly meeting of the Q House Advisory Board. The meeting took place online via Zoom.
The board members voted unanimously in support of renewing LEAP’s contract to allow the long-time tutoring and swimming instruction nonprofit to keep running programming at the reborn 197 Dixwell Ave. community center.
LEAP — short for Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership, Inc. — has been managing the site since the Q House reopened a little over a year ago. That’s thanks to a three-year, $100,000-per-year contract with the city that the Board of Alders approved in June 2021.
Monday’s Q House Advisory Board vote was in support of a new five-year deal that would preserve that $100,000-per-year agreement, and that would extend it from July 1, 2023 through 2028.
Since the Q House board unanimously recommended approval of the new five-year contract, that LEAP‑Q House deal now advances to the full Board of Alders for review and a potential final vote.
“This is the first step towards a new contract,” LEAP Executive Director Henry Fernandez told the Independent in a phone interview Wednesday. He said LEAP plans to continue negotiating with the city before a final contract comes before the Board of Alders.
“LEAP had just been doing an outstanding job with the programming and the management of the building,” Dixwell Alder and Q House Advisory Board member Jeanette Morrison told the Independent in a followup phone interview about the board’s vote to recommend approval of a new contract with LEAP.
“They have ensured that different types of programming has come out of this building” and have built partnerships with groups ranging from CitySeed to Breed Academy to the New Haven Ballet to make sure the site is active with cooking lessons and videography courses and dance recitals and basketball games and more.
Click here, here and here to read about some of the programs that took place at the Q House over the last year, and here to read more about upcoming events.
LEAP's plans for the year ahead.
At Monday night’s Q House Advisory Board meeting, LEAP Executive Director Henry Fernandez and Chief of Staff Yakeita Robinson gave the board members an update on some of the work that their nonprofit has been up to at 197 Dixwell Ave. since the reopening of the new community center — as well as on some of the programs LEAP has planned for the year ahead.
Fernandez and Robison said they’ve installed baseball nets in the center’s gymnasium so that kids can play baseball indoors. They’ve partnered with CitySeed to host farmers markets and culinary classes in the center’s commercial kitchen. And they’ve worked with Breed Academy to host music production classes for youth.
They also said that LEAP has strengthened its ties with Yale to foster community development and employment out of the Q House. They’ll be continuing their partnership with the Yale Hiring Initiative, which has one-on-one sessions twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, at the Q House.
As for other planned upcoming events, Yale New Haven Hospital staffers will visit on Feb. 6th and Yale Medical Care Center staffers on Feb. 20 to discuss available employment positions and the application process.
The Q House will also host a job fair in the spring in collaboration with the Yale Hiring Initiative, as well as a wardrobe drive prior to the fair to provide people with professional apparel for interviews.
There will be a Black History Month celebration with a Black history conversation with recently retired Probate Judge Clifton Grave on Feb. 1 at Stetson Library’s new space at the Q House. There will also be a vending event for local businesses on Feb. 18th at the Q House gym, and a game of bingo on Feb. 21st and line dancing on Feb. 22.
The Q House is also highlighting the performing arts, Fernandez and Robinson said, with LEAP partnering with New Haven Ballet to host free ballet classes for young people ages 4 to 11 from Feb. 3 to May 12. The program leads up to a performance at ECA ACES Arts Hall on on Audubon Street May 19 and another at the Shubert Theatre on May 27.
Also this spring, the Q House plans to host The Art of Event Photography Class Series where eight participants will be selected to partake in a four-session event photography class on April 10 through May 1. Participants will have the opportunity to work with local nonprofits on photographic content creation and get hands-on experience with DSLR cameras.