A crowd of city officials, faith leaders, and youth advocates came out on Wednesday for the grand opening of a center that will expand the work of a decades-old D.C. non-profit.
When Mayor Muriel Bowser arrived at the DC Dream Center, she says she asked her team why the street was blocked. “Then I saw why the street was closed… because the community said this is where we plant our roots and this is where we love children,” Mayor Bowser said told the crowd before cutting the ribbon.
“And really there is no better calling that the church community can ask the mayor to do…. to put you in the game, but to make sure we’re standing side by side and toe to toe to help children,” the mayor said.
The four-story, 10,000 square-foot facility will house programs facilitated by the Southeast White House, which opened in 1996 by Sammie Morrison and Scott Dimock who provided resources like lunches and mentorship to families in Southeast. Over the years, the non-profit began hosting prayer breakfasts and offering additional services for children.
The only requirement at the Southeast White House is that “you are alive and breathing when you come into the front door,” said Ernest Clover, director of the Southeast White House and DC Dream Center. “What Scott and Sammie modeled for us, and we are continuing in, is the legacy of unconditional love—not allowing any external factors to interfere with the object of love because at the end of the day it’s your love to give.”
Before it was bought in 2012 to be turned into the DC Dream House, the center was an abandoned apartment building “that served no good purpose,” said Mark Batterson, founder of National Community Church, which is one of the Southeast White House’s longtime partners.
The DC Dream Center sits blocks away from the Southeast White House, a former residential home on Pennsylvania Avenue SE that was gifted to Morrison and Dimock. Business owners, churches, and community members donated over $5 million toward the new building.
The center’s featured rooms include a dance studio, basketball court, art center, computer lab, and recording studio. The building’s staircase walls are lined with drawings from program participants and art featuring black faces decorate spaces where visitors can socialize. There’s also a rooftop with space for events and views of downtown and the Fairlawn community.
All of the center’s programs are free and open to the public; they including after school activities, yoga classes, tutoring, and personal development sessions.
The center is building more partnerships with companies like Sooma Eats that wants to help make the center “a hub for affordable food options,” representative Michael Tutu told DCist. He says the D.C. based company wants to “change the behavior around food” in a part of town that lacks grocery store and restaurant options.
“The community is ecstatic that it’s finally here and finally open,” ANC commissioner Tiffany L. Brown told DCist.
“A dream fulfilled is transformational,” said Joel Schmidgall, pastor of National’s Barracks Row location, to the crowd. “Today, we stand in the shadow of a dream as it covers us, this is a place of life giving.”
