B&G Club SMART Moves grads learn life skills
From our weekly issue dated February 25, 2009
SMART Moves graduates received completion certificates and t-shirts Friday afternoon, Feb. 20. Bicycle winners were Saraya Smith, 9, and Sanjuana Mendoza, 7. (Photo by Michelle Binker, IVN )
Eighteen Evergreen Elementary School students graduated Friday, Feb. 20 from the SMART Moves life choices program held by the Illinois Valley Branch of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Rogue Valley.
The club ceremony was conducted by I.V. Branch Director, Scott Thornhill, Program Director Randy Keith, and SMART Moves Director Annie Norton. Receiving diplomas and honors:
Destiny Alexander, Deanna Bull, Jaiden Farmer, Alexus Inge, Chelsea Schmitz, Saraya Smith, Ashley Trickle, Destanee Warner, Kathleen Botelho, Jolyn Chastain, Grace DeGiulio, Cambrie Hughey, Taylor Inge, Schylah Joy, Sanjuana Mendoza, Nova Parsons, Gabby Rapley, Lili Webb.
The graduates were applauded, and two drawing winners received bicycles. The graduates also will get an evening to “take over” the Evergreen game room for a pizza and movie night.
Students in SMART Moves learn how to make healthy choices. Topics range from personal hygiene; and preventing alcohol and drug abuse, and pregnancy; as well as how to achieve goals in life. The program includes other components including Power Hour homework help.
It and other components aim at helping youth avoid wrong turns; learning how to take care of their health, and how to study. They give students tools for making smart decisions as they face peer pressure to “go along with the crowd” in middle school and high school.
Peer pressure at those levels is extremely difficult to resist. Boys & Girls Club provides education ahead of that time to prepare students for making positive choices as they mature from children to teen-agers to young adults.
SMART Moves is one of several after-school activities and programs conducted by the I.V. Boys & Girls Club. The club offers an afternoon meal, sports, and life skills activities to approximately 80 Evergreen students. The club also provides leadership, art, performance art, and social activities at Evergreen.
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Students engage in age-appropriate games or sports and other programs between 2 and 6:30 p.m. on school days and other days. Teen-agers from Lorna Byrne Middle School also are able to participate in the activities and to organize dances.
Said Thornhill, “Boys & Girls Club received a grant for the first time from the Oregon Dept. of Human Services. This grant is for our SMART Moves, Power Hour, Triple Play and Family Plus programs.
“Our club needs to put a minimum of 20 members through the programs, and they must complete all parts under the grant to qualify. Today we graduated our first class of participants.”
For information or to enroll in the I. V. Boys & Girls Club, phone 592-4771.
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