About Us

The Cornerstone Learning Center, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving disadvantaged and underserved youth in New York City.

Our focus is to help adolescents acquire:

  • academic skills needed for school success in middle and high school, including promotion each year and graduation
  • personal life skills for healthy living and responsible decision-making

Our goals are to help each young person:

Our Mission

Cornerstone's mission is to equip at-risk adolescents with the tools for academic and personal success, with particular emphasis on literacy

We accomplish this mission through three component programs:

Our History

The Cornerstone Learning Center, Inc. was incorporated in 1994, with programs designed for middle school students, an underserved population with few afterschool resources. We began operations with an educational summer day camp in July 1996, and added our tutoring and after-school programs in the Fall. September 2001 brought the expansion of our program to high school youth.

Our Students

Cornerstone serves economically and academically disadvantaged youngsters: (a) almost two-thirds of our youth live in homes with an annual income below $20,000, (b) generally, about 70% of our students start the school year at least 2 years behind grade level in a reading or math skill, (c) 70% - 80% of 8th graders in the schools we serve did not meet standards on the NYS English Language Arts and Math tests.

In addition to low income levels and poor grades, our students have experienced numerous traumas in their lives: (i) 28% repeated a grade in school, (ii) 20% experienced the death of a parent or sibling, (iii) 16% lived with a guardian, usually a grandmother, (iv) 14% had a family member involved with drugs, and, (v) 12% experienced other traumatic family events.

Cornerstone's students live or go to school on the upper West Side of Manhattan. The ethnic mix of our students is 55% African-American, 20% Latino, 17% Mixed Heritage, and 8% Other.

How can I help?

You can help Gabriel and others directly or indirectly.

Directly:
(a) If you are in NYC you can help directly by becoming a volunteer tutor, providing one-to-one help weekly in reading or math skills to a 6th – 12th grade student. Training and supervision are provided. Get more information at Volunteering.

(b) Make a donation to our work, either for general support or for a specific program area of Tutoring, Bridge, and Summer Day Camp.

Indirectly:
Participate in a Committee or Board. Get more information at Volunteering.

Thank you!

Executive Director

Linda Watrous has been involved in literacy education and the non-profit sector since 1983 in both administrative and program capacities. She is the founder of The Cornerstone Learning Center, Inc. and has been its executive director since inception. For four years (1989 - 1993) she was the Director of Star Learning Center, a premier program of the Upper West Side settlement house, St. Matthew's & St. Timothy's Neighborhood Center, Inc. Previously she worked as both a volunteer and assistant director of that program. The number of young people participating, the educational gains made, and the diversity of services provided all increased substantially during her tenure as Star's director. Other education experience includes teaching English as a second language to graduate level students and serving as a per diem substitute in NYC public schools in CSD 3, Manhattan. Prior to working in education, Ms. Watrous was involved in the for-profit sector as an executive search consultant, office manager, and administrative assistant in several corporations. She holds a Master in Education degree with a focus on remedial reading from Northeastern University and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in sociology from Temple University. Ms. Watrous is a native New Yorker who has lived on the Upper West Side since 1980. She is a Board Member of the St. Matthew’s & St. Timothy’s Housing Corporation.