ABOUT | divineinstitute

MISSION AND HISTORY

D.I.V.I.N.E. Institute continues to proliferate due to the demand for collegiate summer enrichment initiatives, emergency shelters, and group homes. Ultimately, D.I.V.I.N.E. is an organization which promotes fun, games, and prizes via learning. Learning is rewarded through ways scholars can relate. Our goal is to foster a high expectation in a learning environment.

Our D.I.V.I.N.E. Intervention program is a cultural enrichment program designed to highlight the strength and underscore the talent of girls with challenging behaviors and truancy issues. Our program aids girls with achieving the direction, identity, and critical consciousness which leads to positive self-esteem, relationships with others, greater ethnic pride, and higher expectations for future accomplishments.

ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION

To elevate the interpersonal development of youth through literacy and enrichment initiatives which foster life-long learning.

ORGANIZATIONAL VISION

A rigorous program that:

empowers creativity
accelerates learning and
provides educational resources.

This is accomplished through high-expectations and positive reinforcement to promote tomorrow's leaders.

D.I.V.I.N.E. Institute initially emerged from a need to engage inner city youth in the summer by ameliorating their vocabulary and manners. In 1995, Aretta-Rie Johnson started teaching her children advanced vocabulary words and the rudiments of etiquette. Family members began to ask if their children could attend and each summer it grew to the extent of moving into the basement of a local church where the administrative office and summer program still reside.

The summer program participants would always ask to spend the night and parents began suggesting D.I.V.I.N.E. open a boarding school. After much contemplation and consulting, D.I.V.I.N.E. purchased a home in the Midway area of St. Paul and began the process of becoming a state-run emergency shelter and group home. In September 2017, D.I.V.I.NE. Intervention opened its doors to girls 12 - 17 years old.