During a recent Thursday after returning from school, 15-year-old Eryka Joseph took a break from her homework in her bedroom to plop down on a cushy living room chair next to a television stand crammed beneath with board games and videos. Nearby a Christmas tree glowed, sheltering presents under its branches.

Long braided hair framing her face and cascading down to her gray and pink hoodie, the Radnor High School sophomore appeared as relaxed as any Wayne teen would be at home. Her teal-socked feet brushed the floor as she talked passionately about her favorite school subjects that include English and singing in an honors chorus. After high school she hopes to attend an Ivy League university, perhaps Penn or Harvard, and one day become an attorney.

But Joseph is a long way from her family and home in New York. She is one of six students enrolled in the Radnor A Better Chance program.

Radnor A Better Chance is an affiliate of a national program to provide academically promising minority students an opportunity to attend a top-notch school without the financial hardship. The home, a century-old Victorian with a wraparound porch on the 100 block of West Wayne Avenue, has been a base for Radnor A Better Chance for more than 40 years. The students attend Radnor High School, which was named in 2012 as among the nations best high schools by U.S. News & World Report, while boarding at the home during each semester.

In return, say ABC House board members, the high-school community is enriched by a greater diversity of students.

Thats a win-win for both sides, said Anna H. Davis, the boards vice president and a Tredyffrin resident.

Close to 3,000 students nationwide apply each year for admittance to the nonprofit ABC program, which was founded in 1963 during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The program includes about 300 of the nations leading schools private and public. Radnor ABC is only one of a handful of coed programs in the country, however.

The current class of Radnor ABC students is made up of three males and three females: two freshmen, two sophomores, one junior and one senior. They hail from as far away as Georgia and Queens, N.Y., and as close as Philadelphia, and Wayne is their home away from home.

Each girl has her own bedroom in the main house, which is owned outright by the board, while the boys reside in the carriage house. But everyone eats together in the dining room and comes together for evening study hall.

Their surrogate family currently includes an in-house residence director as well as three tutors one male and two females - who live in apartments in the house or in the rear carriage house, and a paid part-time skilled cook, who everyone reverently refers to as the The Chef. Continued...

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