Virginia Gold, a director of CCS programs and an employee at the Fuller House, says the house caters to "kids of the African diaspora." Payments for day care are adjusted according to financial need.

The afterschool program lasts from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. each weekday and includes an evening meal.

Under the tutelage of students from the Academics for Changing Times Corps (ACT), youngsters boisterously engage in stimulating hands-on projects.

The Fuller House projects a homey atmosphere. When people walk into the foyer, they encounter a large water container filled with pennies for an equipment fundraiser.

Students talk eagerly of asking their parents for pennies or finding pennies on the walk home so they can contribute their part. Every small copper coin now takes on profound significance.

Radiating the feel and noise of any other daycare center, the children are teasingly playful to each other and to the ACT teaching volunteers.

Children complete homework, play with drums and tear around the room. Then five minutes later, they change their minds for some other activity that they have deemed more exciting.

But sometimes the children get too excited. After ignoring repeated pleas by Tamika, the self-appointed leader of the ACT Corps volunteers, to put away their homework and to stop dawdling at the chalkboard, her voice takes on a harsher tone.

"Now I know I said this in English, but if you guys are having trouble understanding...." Tamika lets her voice trail off and puts up her hands with a combination of attitude and nonchalance.

After some semblance of order reappears in the room, Tamika explains the afternoon's project: growing sensitivity plants in small egg-carton containers. Tamika explains that each child can take his sensitivity plant home if it sprouts into fruition.

"It is up to you how your plant grows," she says.

When Tamika explains that the sensitivity plant is so named because it closes when you touch it, one young child cries out, "That's phat!" combining her childish wonder with hip street slang.

Students discuss how to care for their plants and collect money for the penny drive. Then the tantalizing aroma of macaroni and cheese wafts up the stairs and the children eagerly line up for dinner downstairs.

Nze says the children mainly come from working and single-parent families. Parents want their children to partake of the center's musical and dancing classes, she says.

Because most of the families are near the poverty level, some of their fees are subsidized, according to Nze.