The documentary showcases the Renaissance West community and the Howard Levine Center’s holistic approach to breaking intergenerational poverty on Charlotte’s West Side. Speakers—including residents, parents, educators, and staff—describe a vibrant neighborhood where children receive early‑learning experiences such as circle time and nature exploration, and where a STEAM‑focused curriculum exposes them to science, technology, engineering, arts, and medicine careers. The program wraps around families with GED assistance, parenting workshops, and money‑management classes, emphasizing that education must involve the whole household. Community spaces host frequent activities that foster social connection, and leaders stress that sustained investment is essential because the children are ready to thrive. Overall, the film presents a vision of a thriving, supportive community that equips families to escape poverty.
Chapters
At Realm West, there's always something to do in the neighborhood.
Our mission is to really build a holistic, thriving community. When we look at our vision for that, it's really to create a community that helps people get out and stay out of poverty.
With the Howard Levine Center, What I've noticed is that the infants are getting circle time. They're going outside and exploring the nature, and I love that my son is able to get that as well at school.
We're really about educating kids, and the STEAM part makes it such a special underlying foundation.
STEAM meaning I have a focus of science, technology, engineering, The STEAM model alone allows for those opportunities where kids are exposed to careers. When they leave this school building, they know, I can do engineering, I can be a doctor, and things of that nature.
Some of our parents may not have finished high school, and we want our parents to see the value in education. And so that's what sets us apart. We are wrapping around the student, we're wrapping around the parent, and we're wrapping around the community. Here, we're wrapping around the whole family, working together as a community.
So when we talk about eradicating poverty or breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty, we look at multi-generations.
Bingo! If you're in your apartment for too long by yourself, it's not a good thing. So I found that, you know, getting together with some people, you know, coming down here in the community room to, to do activities or just to come down to talk or whatever, it's, it's a great atmosphere. It really is.
My family love that I'm here. They really do. They feel comfortable with me being here. We're always doing something. Some activity is going on all the time. It's always something good going on here.
We'll help folks who need to get their GED, and then we do other things that strengthen families, such as parenting classes. How to manage money.
It's really peaceful and just people can get along.
If we're really going to say we're changing the West Side of Charlotte, we're going to take it by storm and do all of these things, it's going to take money. But the key is that you're making a great investment because the kids at Renaissance West are ready, ready, ready, ready.
Well, our kids are our future, and if you have well-educated, Teachers who want to actually teach the kids something new, that's the first step.
