All through my early years, I wanted to be a physician and surgeon like my father, Herbert A. Sheen, M.D. Papa was a family physician with a background of serving the low income populations of St. Louis, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; and Tyler, Texas; before coming to Watts, California, in 1945. He understood that the healing processes of his patients began and ended with deeper symptomatology than organic disease. Later, I was to learn this, and other parallelisms with the medical practice of Maria Montessori, M. D., that would influence my life forever!

Papa's varied efforts to upgrade his beloved Watts brought little results over the time span of 1945 - 1965, except the new office building he erected and the Watts Towers built by Sam Rodia, which I witnessed with great interest. The summer of 1965 erupted into a civil rebellion, punctuated with citywide rioting, prompting Papa to offer 'no-interest' loans for private community redevelopment, thinking that economic mobility could make a healing difference and pride and dignity could prevail. Failure was evident by 1968, so Papa decided to donate his life's savings and assets into a non-profit foundation to develop an indigenous teaching and learning center with a concentrated focus on early childhood development and total education. I saw and understood his vision. Together we created a village of nine buildings known as Sheenway School and Culture Center, which began serving the Watts/South Los Angeles communities in 1971. For 38 years, Sheenway provided a golden learning environ for toddlers through Kindergarten, evolving into subsequent grades through high school. In the fall of 2010, Heritage College-Ready Academy High School opened on our historic Sheen Educational Center campus.

Exposure to the arts is an important aspect of a child's development, but repeated budget cuts have dramatically reduced, or in many cases, eliminated these classes in many schools. Sheenway aims to fill this gap with The Sheenway Youth Enrichment Center, planned to be the final development at Sheen Educational Center. This new 1850 sq. ft. facility will house a free after-school and weekend program for youth ages 6 - 18, as well as offer academic tutoring. The classes will include performing arts; visual arts; martial arts; field trips to cultural venues to attend concerts and theater; a student-run bakery; and a competitive Cricket Club.