If Iris Banister was looking for job security and stability, she probably ended up in the wrong place. Banister was selected to lead the Rochester Surround Care Community Organization, the nonprofit formerly known as the Rochester Children's Zone. It was a long-awaited decision from an organization whose existence had begun to look tenuous.

The Children's Zone was first proposed by former city schools Superintendent Manny Rivera. He borrowed the idea from Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone. Rivera, like Canada, saw thousands of elementary students coming to city schools tired, hungry, and emotionally traumatized by their poverty-ridden surroundings. Rivera believed that the district could improve student performance up to a point, but academic achievement would eventually plateau unless some of the systemic social issues were addressed.

The Children's Zone was synonymous with Rivera and the school district. But after selling the community on the need for a grand-scale program, Rivera left the district. That was more than three years ago.

The Children's Zone survived a succession of school district leaders; the shooting death of one of its board members, community activist James Slater; and a slow but steady erosion of community support. Even with $4 million in startup funding from former Governor Eliot Spitzer, how the Zone would look, what services it would offer, and how it would function seemed, at times, stuck in a rudderless planning process.

So Banister's selection as the RSCCO's first executive director is something of a watershed moment. A former teacher and administrator, Banister worked for the city school district for more than 30 years. As the former executive director of Wilson Commencement Park, she was instrumental in the development of an 18-unit apartment complex called Destiny, where single parents live with their children in a safe environment, overcome personal obstacles such as substance abuse, and learn how to become self-sufficient.

Banister has earned a reputation for being streetwise and boardroom savvy. Her maternal nature belies what one board member described as a "tough as nails" interior, a sort of steel magnolia.

"By bringing Iris Banister on board, I think we've gone from an idea to a reality," says City Council member Adam McFadden. He is president of the nonprofit's board and was on the selection committee for the director position.

"She understands this community and probably better than anyone can make things happen here," McFadden says.

But it won't be easy.

RSCCO has six areas of emphasis: health and wellness, prenatal and early childhood development, parental support and adult education, literacy, high school graduation, and community safety. It will serve a community that covers the 14621 neighborhood in the northeast section of Rochester, an area frequently described as the poorest in Monroe County.

In a recent interview, Banister explained how RSCCO will function. It will not provide services to the community directly, she says. But RSCCO couldn't provide services even if it wanted to. It has only three paid employees, including Banister. Banister's success will instead be measured by her ability to marshal the help of hundreds of volunteers. Even Banister agrees it will be difficult.

But what concerns Banister most is not her organization's manpower or its capacity to provide help to the community. It is a cultural shift toward apathy and an acceptance of violence that ensnares inner city youth. The following is an edited version of an interview with Banister.

CITY: Why has it taken so long for this program to get off the ground?

Banister: The real problem in my estimation was that it was housed in the Rochester school district and their desire was to lead it, but not lead it. And you have to have a clear leader. It's just that simple. They should have taken the position, which I am hoping they are willing to take now, to be our partner, but our junior partner.

It was in a tailspin for a bit, trying to figure out: are we going to save it.

Everyone seems to understand the surround care concept, but it was never clear how you would operate.

I'm glad you asked because, you're right, it hasn't been clear. Imagine us as an umbrella. We have a number of very sound agencies and organizations that are thriving. I would like to see us bring them together around a common agenda with a strategy for serving the Surround Care Community.

We would then serve as a clearinghouse for those services. When people contact us, we would know what services are available and which agencies provide those services. If the services are not available, we would look for agencies we could invite into the community. Is there a state or federal government program?

We are advocates. There is no entity that we will not engage ourselves with whether it is inside or outside the Surround Care Community.

Many of the agencies that you're talking about work in silos. They have their own budgets and their own objectives. How are you going to get them to share their budgets and resources with you?

Well, we don't want their budgets. Let me be very clear about that. I believe that many agencies do a great job. I am suggesting that we all sit at the same table to really look at what each of us does, so we can think in terms of being more specific rather than duplicating services. This will save money.

We want to know if there is a way to draw back and say, "You do this service really well. I will send people over your way. But I do this service and it would be great if you would send people my way."

Then we can look at fund-raising in a whole new way. We can look at it as service-driven rather than by agency.

Have you initiated these conversations with the heads of these agencies and what have the responses been like?

People were rather standoffish at first. Not toward me. I have been a fixture in this community for 40 years. I know many of the people in this community and I have got history. But I believe the only way you can be proactive is by working together. I've met with many of the agency heads and they have been positive and supportive, but like you, they've wanted to get a clear understanding of what Surround Care Community is trying to do.

For those agencies that don't want to sit down at the same table yet, I will certainly go back to talk to them to see how we can interface. I am not so naïve to believe that everyone is going to flip and say, "Hurray, the Rochester Surround Care Community is here." But as we start to make changes, systemic changes, they'll have no other choice than to get on board because we all have the same goal.

Let's take one of your main areas of focus, like health and wellness. Give an example of how your team will help parents in the community.

What we're doing is taking the community and dividing it into eight sections. Each section will have a village organizer. This way, there is a clear person from the Surround Care Community that you can interface with, discuss the issues, and seek out solutions.

This eight then make a team and they will identify some issues that only apply to their village, but some may be universal. Health care is one of them.

The village organizers have met with our health and wellness team. The health and wellness team has already joined forces with the Rochester Health Foundation. The Rochester Surround Care Community put up a $50,000 grant with them to show that we are truly serious and invested in the health of our children.

We are going street by street if necessary to find out where our children are in terms of health. Are they insured? If not, then making sure they have access to insurance.

Now let me clarify something: All of these people are volunteers. None of them are being paid for the hard work they're doing.

You've brought up the issue of crime several times and its impact on the Surround Care Community. Why do you think crime has become so embedded in this community?

There is what I call a surplus hopelessness. When you get to the point that you're hopeless, you're down and looking up. But surplus hopelessness is when you're down and you don't believe there is a way up.

This is about blind neglect. You can have a situation where people are disconnected and they don't have a sense of neighborhood. You can have a situation where a mother is trying to raise her children and she has to make a choice: whether she is going to go to work to care for those children or whether she is going to stay home because she can't afford child care. When people reach that point where they don't care - I don't care about me and I don't care about you - it's not that difficult to kill you. In killing you it gives me a sense of power. It's a negative power, but it's a power nonetheless.

How will you fund the Surround Care Community in the years ahead?

I think that Rochester is one of the most giving communities in New York State. I think that when you look down the tunnel of time at the survival of the Surround Care Community, you're really looking at the survival of Rochester. I believe there are people smart enough to know that if you invest today and we get it right, this is a model we can duplicate in other areas.

So I'll be calling on investors, the city school district, and the city. But we have other plans as well.

How will you measure your success and hold yourself accountable?

As I look at our goals for the first year, I think we will be able to ask: Did crime go down? Are more children registered for health insurance? If the answer is yes, that speaks to our success. If there are too many no's, then we'll stop and re-evaluate our strategies.

You said that you were concerned that people might look at this as a black movement. Why? Some people might prefer to look at it that way and they may see it as an advantage.

But this is not a black community. This is a diverse, multicultural community. If you go far enough in some directions you will see the signs change to Spanish language. Do we ignore them? We have whites who have lived in some of these houses for years and years. Do we disenfranchise them because of the color of their skin? That sounds a little backward.

This is for every person in the Surround Care Community. Everybody. If you live here, you are part of it. If you live here, you are covered. These services are for you. If you live here and you don't like what you see, you've got to get up and get engaged. One of the notions that I like about Surround Care is that it is not done for you. It is done with you. It is not done to you. It's done in concert with your goals and aspirations.