The Youth Summit will be held on the premises of the Waynesboro Boys & Girls Club location, 302 E. Main St., Waynesboro.

News Virginian editor Jonathan Hunley will serve as the moderator for the forum, which will pose questions on issues facing the Waynesboro youth community.

in conjunction with the forum, the Club’s board of directors has issued a position paper covering issues including local school funding, city funding for nonprofit youth-service organizations and teen pregnancy. The position paper takes tough stands on those issues, pushing city leaders to take a more proactive stance in combatting teen pregnancy and providing more funds for local schools and nonprofits that work with local youths.

Read the position paper: Click here.

Augusta Free Press is a corporate partner of the Boys & Girls Club and will be on hand for the April 19 forum to report and share video from the proceedings.

Among the speakers who visited were Vermell Grant, Assistant Superintendent of the Waynesboro Public Schools, Ophie Kier, Staunton City Councilman, Officer Fred Smith with the Waynesboro Police Department, Keisha Jones, a teacher at Kate Collins Middle School, and Stacey Strawn, owner of Blue Moon Gallery.  Thanks so much to all those who participated in this learning experience for our youth.

The Tot Trot is a 1-mile fun run for kids ages 8 and under that will take place in two loops combining paved and grass trials. Each child who participates in the FREE Tot trot will receive a finisher ribbon.

Details

When: Saturday, April 21
Schedule: Registration begins at 7:30 a.m., Tot Trot begins at 8:30 a.m., 5K Run and Walk begins at 9 a.m.
Where: Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church, 30 Tinkling Spring Drive, Fishersville
Phone: 540.885.0746
Web: www.tinklingspring.com

The summit will be held at the Waynesboro Club (302 E. Main Street) on Thursday, April 19 at 7 p.m. in conjunction with National Boys & Girls Club Week.

All candidates running for the open seats on the Waynesboro City Council and Waynesboro School Board are invited to participate in a facilitated forum, led by Jonathan Hunley, editor of the News Virginian.  Candidates will have the opportunity to answer questions focused specifically on youth issues and opportunities.

Following the forum, the public will have an opportunity to meet and speak with the candidates directly.

“It seems as if so many agencies, businesses and individuals are caught up in trying to make ends meet, and as a community we have lost focus on our youth” said Tyrell McElroy, BGC director. “Our young people are future workers, voters and community members. They are our neighbors. When we fail kids, we fail our community and ourselves,” McElroy continued.

“Here in our community, we need to work together to ensure these young people have access to the same opportunities for success that we had.” said Tom Hardiman, BGC Board Chair.  “This forum will provide our parents, teachers and community leaders an opportunity to ask candidates where they stand on key issues prior to the May elections.  The Boys & Girls Club is a non-partisan, non-profit youth organization – we advocate for kids, not candidates.”

While all current Council and School Board members are invited to attend, the facilitated forum will feature questions to those running for election in May.  To date, Mayor Frank Lucente, Vice Mayor Bruce Allen and Ward B Council candidate Bob Donaldson have confirmed along with Doug Norcross and Linda Jones, candidates for School Board.

The Boys and Girls Club of Waynesboro, Staunton, and Augusta County provides service to about 160 youth each day from our Waynesboro and Staunton Club locations.  The Club develops youth in five core areas:  Character& Leadership; Education & Career; Health and Life Skills; Sports & Fitness; and the Arts.

The purpose of the Club is to promote development in these core areas for boys and girls during critical periods of their growth.

To learn more or to support the Boys & Girls Club, go to our Facebook page, visit http://www.augustabgclub.org or call 540-949-4516.

Why worm farming, you might ask? The Boys & Girls Club is the proud caretaker of 10,000 and more super and standard red wiggler worms.  Steven Blair is the whisperer, and B&GC staff member Whit Caulkins works with Blair and the youth, to keep the worms well-hydrated and happy.

The worms were acquired last fall as a part of Project Grows, a multi-partnership between Augusta Health, the Boys & Girls Club, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, the Department of Social Services, Head Start, Mary Baldwin College, the Central Shenandoah Office on Youth, Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Valley Community Services Board, working to help to reduce childhood obesity in Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County.

Land has been acquired from Augusta County to start gardens in the Verona area for the project.

Caulkins says the youth have helped with the worms by going upstairs, where the worms are presently living in their worm hotel, and helping to maintain them by feeding them a diet of shredded paper and compostable vegetable waste. The worms recycle that waste and paper into worm castings – ideal for the new gardens that will start this spring.  While the initial purchase was for 10,000 worms, that number is also growing as the worms grow and reproduce.

Future plans for the worms include a few being relocated to the gardens and some may possibly be sold at the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival or other related events as PR for the B&GC and Project Grows.

“The worms,” Caulkins says, “were more a way to get the kids interested and learning something about composting than for use at the garden site.”

Future plans are that Project Grows will help provide a learning experience for area youth about where tomatoes and other vegetables really come from and to experience what truly “fresh” vegetables taste like.

It is hoped that growing and tasting fresh vegetables will encourage their consumption and a reduction of the growing epidemic of childhood obesity which can lead to diabetes and other health-related illnesses.

It started with an idea from a young man named Jeffrey Bowers at the Boys & Girls Club. He attended the National Youth Venture Summit in Orlando and thought there should be a video on bullying.

That idea grew. Cynthia Pritchard, executive director of the United Way of Greater Augusta, says, “Jeremiah Jordan contacted our office about an internship and loved the concept, and that came hand in hand with the receipt of the funding to do the video.”

Funding for the project came from the Waynesboro Kiwanis Club and the Gannett Foundation.

“We contacted the Boys and Girls club and partnered on the project,” continues Pritchard. Youth from the B&GC are the players and star in simulated bullying situations.

Did you know that an estimated 160,000 children miss school every day because of a fear they will be attacked or intimidated by other children?  One in seven students in grades K-12 is either a bully or a victim of bullying. Ninety percent of fourth- through sixth-graders have reported they are victims of bullying.

- Statistics from the National Education Association

The Boys and Girls Club presents great options and multiple choices for area youth.  Youth of the Month winners enjoy sports, playing and power hour but the favorite option among them seems to be “we get to play.”  Mariela Ruiz (8years old) attends Berkley Glenn and says she really likes to play.  She was the December Youth of the Month for ages 6 and 7 – the perfect age to have the opportunity to play in a safe and supervised environment.

For Kourtney Smith (10 years old), December ages 10 and 11 youth, when asked what she liked best answered, “I guess that we get to play.” Kourtney attends Westwood Hills and can light up the room with her smile.  Nine-year-old Resun Stevenson attends Wenonah and says quietly that she likes “Knockout and playing softball.”  Resun was the December 8- and 9-year-old Youth of the Month.

For ages 12 and up, Kate Collins student Davon Dalenta says he has been coming to the Boys and Girls Club since he was 6years old.  He likes “hanging out with my friends, playing basketball and power hour (sometimes).”  Power hour, he says “is when we do homework.”  He also admits “I like PlayStation 3.”

Youths of the Month

 
Above Left: Resun Stevenson. Above Right: Kourtney Smith

It was a cold January day, but it was also a Friday afternoon, and the youngsters at the Boys & Girls Club were getting restless.

Going outside on this wintry day wouldn’t mean basketball, as it usually does on the blacktop courts off East Main Street.

Waynesboro High School soccer players Eric Chandler and Matthew Burns were on hand to begin a new program aimed at teaching Club members the “beautiful game.”

“We’re here to expose the Boys & Girls Club to soccer, something that we grew up with, we love, to get them doing it, too. It’s a lot of fun,” said Burns, who coached one group of Club members, The Dominators, they called themselves, through a few drills before running a series of scrimmages.

Boys & Girls Club board president Tom Hardiman also serves on the board of directors of the Augusta Football Club. Hardiman asked Boys & Girls Club executive director Tyrell McElroy to cross-check the membership lists of both organizations, and found that there were only five children who were members of both.

“What we want to do long-term is help bridge that gap and get more kids at the Boys & Girls Club exposed to the game of soccer,” said Hardiman, before joining Chandler and Burns in taking part in drills and the scrimmages.

Hardiman at one point asked the group how many of them had played soccer before. A few hands went up; just as many asked if they could play basketball when they were done kicking around the soccer ball.

“We’ve still got some work to do here,” Hardiman said.

Soccer is “a great game,” he said. “It can help teach them about fitness, teamwork, leadership skills. We think it’s a good fit to bridge that gap.”