“I love when our girls come in and see me in my hijab and they see somebody that looks like their mom or their aunt or their sister. They know this is a place they belong.”
Hawa Adan started coming to King Street Center when she was in elementary school. “It’s a space where my mom and my siblings and I could come and see other people that look just like us,” Hawa recalls. King Street provided a safe, welcoming after-school environment and exposed her to opportunities in the greater Burlington area.
Today Hawa is director of King Street’s K-5 program. She also volunteers at the Janet S. Munt Family Room in Burlington, where she helped start a support group for families of children on the autism spectrum.
King Street and the Family Room are both United Way funded partners that foster community and connect diverse families to whatever resources they need to thrive.