 |
Board censures Corder, strips him of his duties
Mourners remember
Stern with fondness
District raises
the bar on progress
Newberg-Dundee
Youth Outreach:
A place to hang |
An average of 150 kids filter through the youth
center's doors each week |
By Gunnal Olson, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
 Josh Brady, 11, started visiting the
Newberg-Dundee Youth Outreach two years ago, right around the time the nonprofit
organization moved into the building sharing a wall with Dominoes on East First Street.
Time wise, Brady was struggling in school. Mostly he couldn’t get his
assignments done and turned in.
“I just had a hard time getting them done at home,” Brady said
Thursday evening, sitting on a couch at Youth Outreach (YO!) and fending off requests for
him to play pool. At home he was always wanting to hang out with his older brother, and
couldn’t concentrate on homework. Now he religiously shows up at YO! for its Tuesday
and Thursday night study hall with his math and science assignments. “Now I get them
done here.”
It took him only about a month to get his late assignments in, and bring his
grades up to a B average. His stepfather, Nick Varnum, has noticed an improvement in
Brady’s study habits.
“He knows better what to do,” Varnum said, noting his improved
organizational skills. “He’s also self-starting now.”
Brady’s experience at YO!, for kids 16 and younger, is but one in many.
Mark Bartlett, who oversees the center from 5 to 9 p.m. weeknights for its drop-in
program, comes in contact with troubling situations in kids’ lives that are a lot
harder to handle constructively.
Such as an incident where a group of middle school boys one night after
leaving the center thought it would be fun to knock over a Realtor’s sign. It would
have been easy for YO! to focus on the negative when it received disgruntled calls from
the Realtor and the homeowner.
Instead, said YO! Director Kate Stokes, the center tries to focus on building
on the kids’ assets and potential.
“What we hope is that this counters the problems they face,” Stokes
said.
In punishment for the vandalism, the kids each wrote a letter to the Realtor,
as well as to the homeowner.
“If you want I will do something to show my apology of my disruption at
your home and neighborhood,” one kid wrote to the homeowner. “I was acting so
stupid; I did not know what I was doing.”
The Realtor also received a letter that started by saying, “I’m
sorry I was acting like big dumbo,” and ended with “me and my friends were being
stupid that night and I know we will regret it. I’m very sorry. Can you ever forgive
me?”
Stokes said kids of all needs come through the doors — an average of 30
per night, 150 a week. Some kids, such as Brady, show up several nights a week. Others
drop in maybe once a month.
YO! organizes many activities and groups for the kids. For Latino kids
there’s REAL (not an acronym, but for “keeping it real”). The Youth
Advisory Committee is for kids to give advise to the center. For kids who need to blow off
some steam there’s Adventurers, which takes the kids tubing, for example.
Even with his grades up and his study habits improved, Brady says he
continues to visit regularly. “It’s just fun,” he said.
Diane Erbe, 15, says she heard about YO! through a friend, and spent a lot of
time there when her family was between homes.
“It gave me a place to hang out,” she said. Her favorite memory
with YO! is an ice skating trip she took with Adventurers, recalling the bruises on her
knees and elbows that resulted from so much fun.
The center gets much of its funding and other forms of support from local
partners, among them Austin Industries, Newberg-Dundee Oregon Together, Newberg Public
Library, Chehalem Park and Recreation District, Newberg Rotary, Newberg School District,
God Song Ministries, Prevention Programs and Educational Service District. |
|
From Nov. 26,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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