An NBA All-Star and Sacramento State are teaming up to bring education and economic innovation to a local neighborhood.

The Colleges of Business and Education are working with the St. Hope Academy to establish a new charter school and jumpstart and economic revitalization project.

The St. Hope Academy is an after school youth organization for minority and disadvantaged children in the Oak Park community in south Sacramento.

Local native and basketball legend Kevin Johnson founded St. Hope to provide a safe haven for children, where they could learn discipline, responsibility and leadership, develop character.

“We?re committed to helping St. Hope in any way we can,” said Eric Gravenberg, associate vice president of student affairs and enrollment management. “We want to leverage the university?s resources to those who need it in the Oak Park community.”

Sac State became involved with St. Hope through Gravenberg, who serves on the academy?s board.

The academy has proposed creating a charter school to the Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education.

Charter schools are public schools managed by individuals or organizations outside of the traditional school district system.

They are exempt from many of the laws that public schools are restricted by, are more accountable for student success, with funding through federal grants, individual and private foundations and contributions.

The Board will vote on the proposal May 6, and academy officials are confident that it will be approved.

“We have an incredible amount of support with this project,” Head of St. Hope Academy Lori Mills said. “We were very happy with how well it was received.”

“The community, the students, teachers, parents, the university ? all have been great in getting this project off the ground,” she said.

St. Hope supports 30 kids, ages 8-18, and hopes to increase enrollment to 300 for grades K-8. If approved, the academy plans to open its school doors in August 2003.

The College of Education already provides St. Hope with one-on-one tutors, and wants to extend community outreach by placing mentors and student teachers in the new charter school.

Opportunities for Sac State students might even extend beyond graduation.

“Immediate job placement is possible with this kind of partnership. We?re going to work our very hardest to ensure that we provide St. Hope with the university?s best resources,” Gravenburg said.

The academy will not know how many teachers the school will require until the board votes and details of the plan are ironed out, Mills said.

The College of Business also has a presence in Oak Park, as students are developing St. Hope?s 40 Acres project, an economic revitalization project at 35th and Broadway.

The plan centers around restoring the Guild Theatre and adding a barbershop, a restaurant, Starbuck?s, a bookstore and luxury apartments.

St. Hope has worked closely with the college?s marketing department to develop advertisements and promotions for the new center.

“We?ve been really fortunate to have so much support from Sac State,” Business Development Manager Patience Crowder said. “The students have done an amazing job taking on this kind of a project.”

While the 40 Acres project will hopefully create revenue from the retail side of the center, Crowder said their goal is to promote community involvement for students.

“Everything we do is to enrich and educate the students,” she said.Business students are divided into five teams, each representing a retail outlet.

Each team identifies their target market, develops an advertising campaign and a Web site to promote the business, assesses the competition, and develops a budget.

In addition, students are creating Web sites for their assigned business.

“We were very eager to get involved in this project,” said Dennis Tootelian, professor of marketing and director for the center for small business. “The students offered fresh ideas, and that?s what they were looking for.”

Tootelian oversees all student teams, and recruits them from his marketing and management class.

“Students were responsive,” Tootelian said. “They?ve found that they?ve learned a lot more than what they thought they would.”

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