Teaching kids to make positive choices: Boys & Girls Club of Elgin
Soon after the schools begin discharging kids at 2 p.m. on this particular Thursday in a low-income neighborhood on Elgin's northeast side, the second- through-sixth-grade kids begin streaming in at the central clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Club of Elgin at 355 Dundee Ave.
Some arrive by van from four elementary schools. Others walk or get dropped off by their parents.
As they enter the main doors, they pass a table overflowing with books, collector cards, puzzles and other premiums designed to catch the eye of a youngster. These aren't free, chief operating officer Len Losik says. Kids can earn them by collecting a certain number of “BILI Bucks,” rewards the children can earn by various acts of good behavior in the clubhouse.
The name “BILI,” he adds, is based on one of the numerous slogans and aphorisms plastered on posters all over the building: “Believe, Inspire, Lead, Innovate.”
But the 185 kids who show up here every weekday quickly disperse to the rooms whose delights are free:
• The tech lab where, under the supervision of staff members, they can do homework research or just play online.
• The library-like learning center, where they can quietly read or study.
• The art room, where they can either add to the drawings on the walls or grow plants hydroponically on slots along a vertical “tower garden.”
• The game room, where they can play pool or pingpong, or just snag a table for a game of Pokemon or Jenga.
• The teen center, with TVs and video games.
• The gymnasium — big enough to be the pride of a middle school — where they can play soccer and basketball.
The kids know they have to have their fun quickly because promptly at 3 p.m. the Power Hour will start. At that time kids must move to specific rooms assigned to their grade level, put away paddles and basketballs, and either do homework or quietly read.
The “Power Hour” last until 4 p.m., when the fun can resume again until their parents pick them up or the clubhouse closes at 6 p.m. (activities for teens continue until 10 p.m. on Fridays only).
Meanwhile, similar activities for older club members are going on all across town at Elgin's two high schools (“Club Elgin” and “Club Larkin”), four middle schools (“Club Abbott,” “Club Ellis,” “Club Kimball” and “Club Larsen”) and Hillside Elementary School.
“Without this, so many of our kids would go home to an empty house,” said executive director Cathy Malkani. “And when they don't have anyone there to hold you accountable to do your homework, you're going to start falling behind your classmates.”
“This is like my second home,” said Isaac Espinosa, a Lords Park Elementary sixth-grader who said he reads “Goosebumps” and “Captain Underpants” books during the Power Hour because he usually finishes his homework at school.
“I like the computers and games and just talking to my friends,” Isaac said. His father, who works as a painter, picks him up at about 5 p.m.
“I play board games. My favorite is Connect Four,” said Kimberly Cruz, a second-grader from Channing Memorial Elementary.
Losik said the Elgin Boys & Girls Club was founded in 1993 after city officials and police leaders realized the need for constructive ways for children and teens to spend their time after school rather than contributing to what was then a growing drug and gang problem in Elgin.
At first kids were invited after school to a converted single-family house at Dundee Avenue and Ann Street.
“Everybody who touches these kids' lives becomes a mentor, for positive or for negative,” Losik said. “When kids are out in the world, they have to respond to temptation from their peers to go the wrong way.”
“This clubhouse is a safe area. We don't tolerate bullying. We promote healthy lifestyle choices.”
In 2006, after a $3 million fundraising campaign, the club built its present two-story, 15,000-square-foot clubhouse on the same site. In 2008 the club partnered with Elgin School District U46 to create the middle-school and high-school clubs, and last year a commercial kitchen was added to the clubhouse, which now serves 500 meals each afternoon.
Losik said there is a waiting list for membership at the clubhouse, which stands at its maximum 185 now. Another 300 or so kids can participate daily at the seven school sites.
Malkani said the organization is now conducting a “1,000 Kid Club” fundraising project, which seeks to double the capacity to 1,000 youths each day and reach Elgin's west side as thoroughly as the east side is serviced now. That would be done by adding more school sites (starting with Century Oaks Elementary School this fall) and eventually building a second clubhouse on the city's west side.
The project asks for 1,000 people to pledge $83.33 per month — half the cost of serving one more child.
Malkani said that unlike many Elgin-area nonprofits, the club has been relatively unaffected by the state's budget crisis. She said 60 percent of the $1.8 million annual budget comes from donations from local individuals and businesses, and 40 percent from federal grants and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. However, the city government did cancel $75,000 it had provided yearly, and a $56,000 “Teen Reach” grant from the state is being held up by lack of a state budget.
A note on the game room wall warns that each kid must pay 10 BILI Bucks to play ping-pong today.
“Why?” the note adds. “Because we did not take care of our ping-pong net and this will help us learn to take care of our things.”
A more permanent sign proclaims, “Be Respectful. Be Safe. Be Responsible.”
And a banner in the stairwell reminds all who pass of the overall mission statement of the Boys & Girls Club movement: “To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.”
Losik said membership is not limited to any particular income level, though the mission statement does mention “especially those who need us most.”
Supervising the game room, 19-year-old Stefanie Heckermann of Pingree Grove said she works 20 hours a week as a paid employee at the club while studying at Elgin Community College to become an early childhood teacher.
“The club teaches kids good character and how to interact with other people and solve problems peacefully,” Heckermann said. She said working at the club has given her an idea of what grades she would like to teach (first or second); and by helping children with homework, she sees how drastically the curriculum has changed since she was in elementary school.
“I'm also learning to speak Spanish,” she said. “I'd say that 90 percent of the kids here learn Spanish at home before they learn English.”
Isaac Reyna, an Elgin Community College business student who spent 12 years with the club, said that “the Boys & Girls Club taught me that not only are there good people out there but also that I have the potential and strength to follow all my heart desires.”
Other suburban Boys and Girls Clubs
• Boys & Girls Club of Dundee Township, 20 S. Grove St., Carpentersville. (847) 551-4309
• Boys & Girls Club of Lake County, 724 S. Genesee St., Waukegan, (847) 406-4667
• Boys & Girls Club of Lake County, 50 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, (224) 433-6398
• Boys & Girls Club of West Cook County, 4000 St. Paul Ave., Bellwood, and 4146 Warren Ave., Hillside, (708) 547-6960.
• Boys & Girls Club of Joliet, 226 E. Clinton St., Joliet, (815) 723-3434
• Boys & Girls Clubs of America regional office, 1590 Wilkening Road, Schaumburg, (874) 490-5220