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any given time, there are between
125 and 150 kids living at
Island
Grove Village Apartments.
They go to neighborhood schools,
hang around looking for something to
do after school, and are, well,
kids.
Every
afternoon, TGNN used to teem with an
average of 60 kids taking part in
our nationally-recognized
after-school program, "After-School
Adventures (ASA)." Dreamed up,
organized, and run by
AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, ASA
was a recipient of two HUD Best
Practice awards and was just a whole
lot of fun.
ASA
offered week-long, theme-based
activities, featuring daily web
pages, arts and crafts, and
skills-building activities in a safe
and welcoming place for kids to be
after school. On a regular
basis, we posted all the stuff we
were doing to our old web pages, and
other Neighborhood Networks and
computers around the country
downloaded our program and adapted
it to their needs. Pretty
cool, when you think about it.
The
program ended after five successful
years, though, when AmeriCorps
funding guidelines were changed
nationwide and we lost our VISTA
Volunteers.
We
are returning to after-school
programming following a three-year
hiatus with
Kaleidoscope Youth Program
(KYP), a fun and
exciting after-school kids' program
focused primarily on homework,
academic achievement, and
skills-building in a structured,
supportive environment that
encourages kids to be kids.
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