Lake Road Elementary has 352 students and every day, 50-60 of them stay after school a few hours each day to work on homework and participate in activities designed to promote good character and leadership skills.
A recent donation will now allow the effort to expand to serve children who did not have after school transportation.
The program is part of the Boys and Girls Club of Poplar Bluff’s mission to enable all young people, especially those who need it the most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens.
Lesley Warren, elementary school director for the Boys and Girls Club of Poplar Bluff describes the after-school programs that are offered.
“At Lake Road, we offer an hour of power hour. That is when the kids get to work on their homework or other educational activities that will help with improving their academic success,” Warren said. “After power hour they have an hour of program where they can participate in activities such as healthy lifestyles, STEAM (which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math), good character and leadership as well as prevention programs including social and emotional activities that they can participate in.”
Six staff members from the Boys and Girls Club and four teachers from the school supervise and help the kids each day and now, thanks to a generous donation, they are going to be able to help even more.
Last year Gail Fox-Dohrman donated a bus to the club in memory of her mother, the late Trudy Duncan. A generous donation to be sure and one that Chris Rushin, chief executive officer, wanted to put to good use.
He called the newly appointed principal at Lake Road, Rhondi Vaughn, a 21-year veteran in the district, who jumped at the opportunity to get more kids in the program and immediately went to work.
“Chris contacted me when this was all just starting because he needed a commitment. He was going out there and this was going to take a lot of work, a lot of commitment. I quickly went to the site lead who is on staff in our building and spoke to her and she was on board and there was this excitement about getting this started and it one of those things where every piece was falling into place very quickly,” Vaughn added, “I called Chris right back and I said I’ve got staff who are committed and we have a student list that is ready.”
The students that could not participate before were students that relied on the school district’s busses to get home.
The Boys and Girls Club bus will now be able to get these students home safely each day and Vaughn is excited to be able to help them.
“These are students who are truly in need and they need this and maybe they were on the list in the past, but because their parents couldn’t provide transportation they were dropped,” she said. “We wanted to reach back out to them, and everything fell into place. The only thing that was lacking was the transportation piece and Chris got on that and called me and said, ‘We’ve got it,’ and I said, ‘OK, when can we start?’”
Letters are being sent to parents informing them of the new opportunity for their children to participate in the after-school program and as soon as possible they will be able to proceed with the expansion of the program.
Vaughn is quick to point out other benefits being offered.
“These parents will not only get extra help for their children in school, but the students also get a snack after school. They get to bring home a meal after school. I mean this is really going to help parents meet a lot of the needs their students have,” she said.
As to why she believes the expansion of the after-school program will work so well Vaughn says, “We just have the resources in our building to make it happen. It’s one of those situations where we have a lot of families who truly want to participate, and we have staff members who want it. All of these things come together and will allow it to truly be a great start for success.”
The Boys and Girls Club of Poplar Bluff’s commitment to helping out students in the district earns high praise as well from Vaughn.
“Students just need to be engaged and to build relationships with others. The Boys and Girls Club gives them leadership skills and motivation and helps the students find those interests that are outside of school,” she said. “It truly just lets kids build themselves up and become better leaders.”