ROANOKE TIMES Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times DATE: Tuesday, December 17, 1996 TAG: 9612170024 SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO COLUMN: BETH MACY SOURCE: BETH MACY She does not turn up in the statistics. Unlike many of her teen-age friends in the Northwest Roanoke neighborhood she grew up in, Tomika Miller did not become pregnant. She did not do drugs or drop out of school.
In fact, she took all the risk factors that typically apply to her neighborhood - raised in poverty, by a single mom who worked one, sometimes two, jobs to keep the family afloat - and turned them upside down.
Tomika, now 24, is the first in her family to graduate from college, leaving Radford University last spring with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts.
She is also the first West End Center alumna to finish college.
The relationship between Tomika's success and the West End Center is not coincidental, she believes, citing the center's steady presence in general - and the support of its director, Kaye Hale, in particular - as a primary influence on her life.
``Growing up, any time I'd have a disagreement with my mother, I'd talk to Kaye. Any time my sister and I butted heads, I'd talk to Kaye. She'd listen to me go on and on, and then she'd ask me questions about what I'd said,'' Tomika says.
``She was not judgmental. But she'd help me see the other side.''
Tomika, who recently moved to Manassas and hopes to become a guidance counselor, doesn't get bogged down by the overwhelming and confusing problem of how to fix Roanoke's teen-pregnancy crisis. She already knows the answer.
``What it takes, it's love,'' she says. ``When you feel somebody loves you and cares about how you do, it keeps you on track.''
Kathy LaMotte had always believed Hale's program was a good one. But she needed the stats to prove it.
LaMotte, the city's teen-pregnancy prevention project director - and the person responsible for identifying which programs work and which don't - recently secured a $2,500 grant from the Better Beginnings Coalition. One of the grant's purposes: to statistically track the success of the West End Center in combating teen pregnancy.
Kaye Hale doesn't keep stats on her kids. She doesn't have the time.
Amid the din of after-school programming - tutoring in one room, snacks in another, art projects in another - Hale tried recently to explain the thing she has known all along.
She sat in the secretary's cramped office because hers was in use: A staff member was counseling a teen who had gotten too rowdy.
``You just want to jump up and down because you know you've got at least one of the answers,'' she said. ``So why isn't Roanoke duplicating it? Why aren't they?
``People are outraged by teen pregnancy, but not enough to put their tax dollars where they need to be - in long-term comprehensive programs, not these hit-or-miss things. My kids have enough people who are in and out of their lives, they don't need programs that are in and out of their lives, also.''
The results of the BBC study confirm Hale's belief.
Among the at-risk kids studied who did not have the benefit of West End Center care: 37 percent became pregnant.
Among the West End Center kids tracked: Not a single one.
``The program is the only one of its kind,'' says Kathy LaMotte, who strongly believes it should be duplicated in other Roanoke neighborhoods.
``What they provide, it's so comprehensive, it's almost parenting,'' she says. ``Teen pregnancy is so complicated, it makes people want to throw up their hands and say, `There's no quick fix, no silver bullet.'
``Well, the West End Center IS the silver bullet,'' LaMotte says. ``But it's not a quick fix. It's day-after-day caring about these kids.''
The center serves 150 children. Another 70 are on the waiting list.
Space is not the issue. The center bought a new building next door with block-grant funding. But Hale can't afford the $1,700 a month in operating expenses to open the second building's doors. Year-end fund-raising has not been as good as usual, putting her current annual $248,000 budget on shaky ground.
``I've always worried some, but not like this,'' she says. ``We've never had to deplete our savings before.'' The nonprofit organization needs to raise $45,000 this month just to break even.
``We're not in danger of closing, but there's a possibility we might have to reduce the number of kids we serve,'' Hale says.
And that means more kids becoming statistics.
And fewer kids following in the ground-breaking footsteps of Tomika Miller.
It's a fact. Kaye Hale even has the data now to prove it.
Donations for the West End Center may be sent to P.O. Box 4562, Roanoke 24015. Anyone interested in volunteering may call 342-0902.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON Staff. Tomika Miller (left) credits herby CNBsuccess in life to the positive influence of the West Side Center
and its director, Kaye Hale. color.