Reimagining a shelter as a supportive space for childhood
HAVEN, a winning project of the 2026 President’s Engagement Prize developed by three fourth-year undergraduates, will launch an after-school program for K-5 children at Jane Addams Place, a homeless shelter in North Philadelphia.
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(From left) Chloe Chang, Darlene Leohansson, Connie Ni, winners of the President’s Engagement Prize. They are joined by Briana Clarke, manager of children’s services at the Jane Addams shelter.
At a glance, graduating fourth-years Connie Ni, Darlene Leohansson, and Chloe Chang have dramatically different academic pursuits. Though they all study in the College of Arts & Sciences, Ni is a health and societies major, Leohansson a neuroscience major, and Chang a creative writing major. But as good friends throughout their time at Penn, they came together last year eager to channel their close bond and distinct talents into something meaningful.
“What brings us together is how we use [our knowledge] for service,” says Chang.
The trio was recently awarded the President’s Engagement Prize, which allows Penn undergrads to design and undertake a year-long post-graduation project that makes a positive, lasting difference in the world. In addition to $50,000 living stipends, they will receive $100,000 to launch HAVEN, or Home for Arts, Voices, Enrichment, and Nurturing, an in-shelter after-school program for families experiencing homelessness at Jane Addams Place in North Philadelphia.
“Chloe, Darlene, and Connie are addressing one of the most urgent challenges facing our communities,” says Penn President J. Larry Jameson. “By combining empathy with interdisciplinary insight, their work will transform a Philadelphia emergency shelter into a place of learning and care, offering solutions for those experiencing homelessness that are both deeply human and enduring.”
Jane Addams Place serves 25 families, housing an average of 60 children per year. Ni recalls coming home from the shelter last fall, talking with Chang about a pattern they’d both observed, again and again, while volunteering there: caregivers struggling to find work while still supervising their children.
“It’s this double-edged sword where they have to watch their children all the time, but they’re also trying to get back to employment, and so they’re tired and don’t have that time to breathe,” says Ni.
With Leohansson, a Philly native with a background in youth education, they began to craft their idea. “HAVEN was born out of our three areas [of study] in pursuit of serving the families we’ve been seeing for a couple years now,” adds Ni.
How the HAVEN program works
HAVEN, so-named to provide families in shelters a safe haven, was developed following a needs-based assessment in the fall with parents and caregivers. The team also piloted two after-school program sessions to collect meaningful feedback, which they say has allowed them to adjust the program to better suit resident needs.
The HAVEN team with Liz Donaghue, assistant shelter director, in Jane Addams’ Bright Spaces room.
The project has a few aims:
Care: The after-school program will include dance, art therapy, and creative storytelling. For the latter, Chang says she was inspired by the Penn Listening Lab, where she came to value listening as a form of care, and hopes the K-5 children they serve can learn to “assert their agency over time in an uncertain situation.” The program will also be a space for building confidence and joy. “We’re reimagining the shelter as a place for childhood,” says Chang.
Consistency: “[Programming] in a lot of shelters is very sporadic,” says Ni. Their program will run every day of the week with paid staffing, including in-shelter youth interns who will have the opportunity to develop leadership skills and financial literacy.
Comfort: Funds from the Prize will support heating, ventilation, and air conditioning for an existing gymnasium, a renovated courtyard with a new playground and mural, and repainting and refurnishing of the cafeteria. “We’re really excited that this award can help us transform the space with the after-school program, but also literally transform it with renovations and updates,” says Leohansson.
Penn President J. Larry Jameson celebrated all the winners of this year’s Presidential Prizes at the annual PIP PEP luncheon, including Darlene Leohansson of HAVEN.
(Image: Eddy Marenco)
The team credits their Penn experience with grounding the program in practice. Through CityStep, Ni and Leohansson worked in arts-based mentorship that now inform HAVEN’s design. Leohansson’s empirical research with the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics emphasizes the power of art. And Chang notes that, for a course she completed as part of her creative writing program, she wrote a children’s book for the kids at Jane Addams.
Caroline Watts, the team’s mentor and a senior lecturer in the Graduate School of Education and director of the Office of School and Community Engagement, says they’ve been creative about creating solutions that fill an “enormous” gap in caregiving, especially coming out of the pandemic and with economic shifts that compound Philadelphia’s challenges with children living in poverty.
“It makes me optimistic that we have [these] creative, smart, young people who want to bring their energies, their skills, and their resources to communities in a really grounded way that I hope will be sustainable within the Jane Addams shelter,” Watts says. “I’m usually optimistic when people display interest, care, and then persistence—because it’s long-term work and commitment to take care of our society.”
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