An additional 3,200, like the Serrao children who left Harlem three years ago, come from all across New York City to attend its well-regarded charter schools or popular after-school programs.
One by one, the Zone has tried to remove the hurdles facing children born in Harlem.
Because surveys show that more than 30 percent of kids in the area have asthma, the Zone launched an asthma initiative, which it says has cut the number of emergency room visits in half and reduced their number of missed school days by almost 20 percent.
To address the poor diets common in lower-income neighborhoods, there is a monthly farmer's market, where a family can buy 25 pounds of produce for $5.
Conceived by Canada, 56, a children's advocate who grew up surrounded by poverty and violence in the South Bronx, the Harlem Children's Zone was born out of his frustration with well-meaning nonprofits that were too narrow in their focus.
In 1983, he joined the Rheedlen Centers, a nonprofit in Harlem. Over the years, he says, he began to find flaws with traditional programs that singled out specific problems, such as illiteracy or teen pregnancy.
"For every one problem a child had, there were 10 more problems," he says. "For every one child a program helped, there were 10 times the number that weren't being helped."
By 1998, he was president of Rheedlen. He pitched the idea - blanket a swath of Harlem with all manner of children's services - to Rheedlen board member Stanley Druckenmiller, a friend from Bowdoin College and billionaire hedge-fund manager. Together, the two dismissed Rheedlen's board and began fundraising for what they called the Harlem Children's Zone.
"We wanted to do it right, and we wanted to think of everything," Canada says.
The next year, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation gave Canada $250,000 and the services of a consulting agency to develop a business plan. Canada says that's a critical step that other nonprofits tend to overlook.
The Clark Foundation became so committed to Canada's vision that it had pledged $5.7 million by 2002.
Foundation president Nancy Roob says it was the breadth of the program that sold her on the Zone - that it reached out to families even before children are born, provided a continuum of services through childhood, and grew out of a neighborhood-based strategy.
"Lots of organizations do one of those things, or parts of two or three," Roob says. "But to do all of those things in one place through one organization is what makes it so successful."
