Black History Month Award celebrates Eloise Barrett

Last week, at its Feb. 2 meeting, the City of Ithaca Common Council celebrated Eloise Barrett, retired Ithaca City Youth Bureau youth program coordinator, by awarding her the 2022 J. Diann Sams’ African American History Month Recognition Award. The award commemorates a decadeslong history of helping children throughout Tompkins County.

Though she was born in Rochester, Barrett has spent most of her life in Ithaca, having moved here in the early 1960s when her father helped her grandmother build the Bethlehem Church of Jesus Christ.

At the time, Barrett worked with her late father, Bishop Cecil A. Malone, and her late husband, Bishop Darrell Barrett, to “provide literacy and life skill training to their church and the broader Ithaca communities,” according to a recent press release.

As Eloise explained, in the early and mid-1970s, a large group of immigrants sought refuge with Malone after fellow religious leaders down south spoke to Malone about the harsh working conditions they were facing. The group of about 20 immigrants were brought to Malone’s church, where church staff formed the Special Personal Education Learning Lab (SPELL) to help teach them literacy skills.

“We had to develop it as we went along so we could meet their needs,” Eloise said. “So, once I graduated from high school, during the day, I was helping teach the adults, and then in the afternoon when the kids got out of school, I was teaching and working with the children. So, yeah, that just ended up being one of those things that we continued to do for … about six years. We did that from about ’74 to 1980, when my father died.”

In the mid-’80s, Eloise started taking in foster children in addition to raising her own biological children, and that’s when her journey to the Ithaca City Youth Bureau began.

“We were building our family, and I was just home taking care of my kids and I got a call from a couple different people from the community telling me that there was a new position that they were starting at Ithaca Youth Bureau,” she said. “It pretty much had my name all over it is what they said. And I kept saying no.”

At the encouragement of Youth Bureau staff member and personal friend Marcia Fort, Eloise decided to put in her application, and she was soon called in for an interview.

While a changing of directors ultimately delayed the Youth Bureau’s response, eventually, Eloise received the job offer to lead the newly created Paul Schreurs Memorial Program, which provides “academic assistance, tutors and mentors to students that [are] under represented, marginalized or struggling to navigate the educational systems,” according to a recent press release.

Under Eloise’s direction, the Paul Schreurs Memorial Program quickly expanded beyond its original scope of just 12 students. One of the program’s bigger efforts involved lobbying on the New York Capitol floor to give more funding to programs that engage youth and prevent juvenile delinquency, Eloise said.

While leading the memorial program, Eloise saw many instances where students who could benefit from special needs weren’t receiving them and as a result were falling behind.

“For a while, people saw our program as just wanting to give me all the kids that were failing,” Eloise said. “I had to start changing that to help them see, ‘I will work with these students who have behavioral issues, but we also want to make sure that we’re reaching the students who have the potential to be successful.’ And so, [we started] adapting the program, changing policies, changing procedures and really just trying to make sure no kids were left behind.”

Eloise also worked with local leaders to help them rethink their definition of success when it came to the kids in her program.

“I always argued that if I could get a kid who was struggling in sixth grade through 12th grade into graduation, that was success,” she said. “Whether or not they went on to college, whether they went to a trade school or whatever it was that they chose to do, [I was focused on] being able to keep the kids engaged, keep them out of trouble with the law, help them prevent juvenile delinquency, help keeping them engaged in the educational process, whatever I could do.”

Thankfully, the Youth Bureau was very encouraging of Eloise’s work and gave her the autonomy to expand and build the program however it needed to reach the kids most in need. This included adding opportunities like free after-school programs, summer camps and scholarships.

After just under 30 years with the Youth Bureau, Eloise retired in 2018. She explained that, in late 2017, she had a heart attack, and then in early 2018, she had a bad fall. As a result, it took a long time for her body to fully recover, and given the timing — so close to her 30-year anniversary and her planned retirement — she decided to leave the organization early and take some time to herself.

Since recovering, Eloise has been very active in the community. Last November, she and her family opened The Legacy by ARDM at the Ithaca Tompkins International Airport. Since its opening, The Legacy has become quite the community hub. Many people — including many people of color — have stopped by to drop off business cards, which The Legacy prominently displays to help boost those communities.

“Having watched the revolving door of teachers and people of color come to Ithaca and then leave because they can’t find that place to belong has been very painful to watch,” Eloise said. “We’re working hard to try to bring people in, but once we get them here, they don’t stay because they can’t find things that support their culture and their lifestyle. So, I really hope that The Legacy being there at the airport is a wonderful gateway to the community to be able to have that be a place where … people can come and find these resources and know where they can find each other.”

All of Eloise’s history factored into the Common Council’s decision to give her the African American History Month Award. At the Common Council’s Feb. 2 meeting, several councilors and local leaders shared how profound of an impact Eloise has left on them and the community.

Former Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick, for example, said that “it’s Eloise’s fault” that he ever became Ithaca’s mayor in the first place.

Myrick explained that when he was a freshman at Cornell University, after having a rather “unfriendly and cold” experience up to that point, he decided to sign up to be a tutor, and a staff member recommended he join the Paul Schreurs Memorial Program. To do this, he had to meet his first Ithacan — Eloise.

“She met me … at a picnic table behind Barnes Hall where the public service center was,” Myrick said. “And from that moment to every field trip for all eight semesters that we took with those kids, you just showed me so much warmth and kindness and introduced me to your family and treated me like family and [showed] me that all of Ithaca is not Cornell. … There’s a there’s a warmer place. There’s a place where people ask how your mom is doing, and they actually care. And to work alongside you these last 14 years has been a privilege always.”

As for Eloise, she said she still “can’t even really wrap [her] mind” around the fact that she won this award. She said she’s especially honored because she greatly looked up to the award’s namesake, the late J. Diann Sams.

“One thing that I really received from her was not being afraid to show up,” Eloise said. “Maybe I didn’t have all of the people with me that I would want to bring into that space, but I showed up with my voice to speak for those who [could] not. And that was very, very true at the school board level and working with issues like suspension and different things like that where … a lot of students of color were being affected by policies that were being put in place by the district.”

At the Common Council meeting, Eloise expressed her immense gratitude to all the people who helped her become the person she is today, including her family, her friends and many local leaders like Sams. She said she looks back fondly on the impact she’s left so far and is looking forward to seeing how her more recent efforts like The Legacy continue to affect the Ithaca community for the better.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@vizellamedia.com.