Location

DeNeuville Learning Center
190 S. Cooper Street
Memphis, TN 38104

Contact Information

Phone: 901-726-5902

Sr. Lakshmie Napagoda, Director

Resources

Catholic Diocese of Memphis

Hands on Memphis

Memphis/Shelby County
Public Library

Sisters of the Good Shepherd

Volunteer Memphis

“You have a lot of positive people here at the Center.
Positive people trying to better themselves.It makes you
want to do better yourself."
- DeNeuville Student

History of the DeNeuville Learning Center

On August 8, 1997, DeNeuville Heights School for Girls, operated by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, closed its doors after 33 years of faithful service. DeNeuville Heights School for Girls was an in-depth residential rehabilitation and educational program. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd proved to be so successful in helping young women that Bishop Terry Steib requested that they remain in Memphis and embark upon a new venture. From that request and the Sisters’ desire to help the Memphis community, DeNeuville Learning Center was born.

Fr. David Foley, Pastor of St. Therese Little Flower Church, and the church’s financial council expressed their willingness to lease the vacant building on 840 Dickinson Street to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. The Sisters renovated the building with funds received from the Assisi Foundation’s “Moving Project.” The DeNeuville Center opened its doors on April 13, 1998.

About DeNeuville Learning Center

The purpose of the DeNeuville Learning Center is to guide women in learning the skills needed to make positive choices for themselves and their families. It is accomplished through education, counseling, and promoting ways to enhance one’s self worth and dignity. DeNeuville offers classes in computer hardware and software, GED, English as a Second Language, business skills, and Job Readiness, Financial Literacy, Citizenship Test Preparation classes, parenting, and arts and crafts such as sewing. In addition, DeNeuville also provides counseling services and assists women with babysitting, and emergency needs. The Student population at DeNeuville consists of women from diverse countries, cultures, and backgrounds. The DeNeuville Learning Center Staff (seventy five percent are professional Volunteers) assists the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in carrying out its mission.

Thanks to the Assisi Foundation of Memphis, DeNeuville will be moving to a lager facility on 190 S. Cooper in December 2006. This new building initiative of the Assisi Foundation serves the goal of increasing the visibility of DeNeuville in the community, continuing the services that has been offered, creating an awareness of the value of life-long learning, and making DeNeuville a location where other agencies can meet and serve their best practices.

Sisters of the Good Shepherd have been working in Memphis
with teenagers for 122 years.