Boys & Girls Club gives kids a place to go

Without the Boys and Girls Club to help look after her daughter, Sharon Harris would be spending a small fortune on after-school childcare, and would lose most of the spare time that she has used to earn her master's degree in early childhood education.

Harris, who has recently been promoted to the position of educational coordinator for Blytheville Headstart, trusts the Boys and Girls Club to pick up her 9-year-old daughter, Shakiah, from school and care for her until 5 p.m. Shakiah has been a participant in the program since she was 5 years old, attending the after-school and summer programs, giving her mom time to work, run errands and go to college.

Harris says the program is not just safe childcare, but that her daughter receives educational benefits from the teachers. It is these educational benefits for her children that Lourisa Jefferson cites as the best part of the program. Jefferson, a stay-at-home mom, sends her two daughters to the Boys and Girls Club, and says that they have both raised their scores in school as a result of the tutoring they receive from the program.

The branch of the Boys and Girls Club on the corner of South Elm Street in Blytheville is the only one in town that is open to students of all ages, from kindergarten through high school, and runs a bus service to pick children up from their school campuses.

State Rep. Tommy Baker and Blytheville Mayor James Sanders were on hand recently as director Elroy Brown received a $20,000 donation from the Arkansas State Boys and Girls Club organization. The money is a slice of a $2 million federal block grant to the Boys and Girls Alliance in Arkansas.

The money was distributed to different clubs in the state, based on the percentage of participating children who are what the federal government calls TANF eligible.

TANF stands for "targeted aid needy families," and encompasses all children who live in homes in which income is 200 percent of the national poverty guidelines.

Brown has plans to extend the club's reach with the money, including the new ability to service and insure two vans for student transport. The club also intends to finance trips for their students, both local and out of town.

"Many of these kids, believe it or not," said Brown, "have never even been to a restaurant to sit down and eat. We want to show them what is out there, that there are possibilities in life. We want them to start thinking now that they can go to college, show them ways they can make something of themselves."

sharris@blythevillecourier.com