Adairus Orr(from right), 10, shoots pool with Jaden Roberts, 10, and Jaylin Askew, 11, at the Boys and Girls Club on Monday afternoon. (Ken Caruthers/RN-T.com)
Mentor Anna Bullock helps Rantasia Reynolds, 7, with math problems at the Boys and Girls Club on Monday afternoon. (Ken Caruthers/RN-T.com)
Carrie Edge, Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Georgia chief professional officer
The cost of a value meal at a fast-food restaurant or a designer cup of coffee is also approximately the same amount to give a kid a chance, said Carrie Edge, the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Georgia’s chief professional officer.
“This is a safe-haven to 245 kids a day at the cost of just $2.37 per day per child,”
Edge told members of the Kiwanis Club of Rome on Monday.
It’s a small price to pay to see the effects and hear the laughter of children given a chance to break out of a pattern of poverty, she said. “There’s nothing like the sound of children at play.”
The importance of a place to “be great” can be proved in more than enjoyment of activities — the overall grade point average is in the B range, Edge said.
“I always tease our teenagers that they bring it down a little bit,” she laughed. Of the clubs located in town, South Rome has the highest GPA, she said proudly, and 100 percent of the organization’s Senior Club members graduated on time and a large majority will attend college.
The organization has a location on East Main Street in South Rome and another on Gadson Street in West Rome.
See a Boys & Girls Club video.
Those lessons and abilities to “be great” also flows back into the community, she said.
A gardening program at the South Rome facility, run by the kids, harvested a wealth of food, and those same kids chose to donate more than 200 pounds of greens to the community kitchen to assist in feeding area homeless.
“Not only did they put all the hard work in, out in the hot sun, but also had the foresight to see somebody else needs it,” she said.
Economically, recent years weren’t the best time to open a new location, Edge said of the East Main site, but looking at it from a community service prospective, she said, it was absolutely the best time to open a new location.
As unemployment numbers rose so did enrollments. With a number of parents needing a safe place for their kids to go after school or while they look for work the number of people seeking enrollment may continue to rise.
“We’ve built a brand new facility (in South Rome) and we’ve already outgrown it,” Edge said. “For the first time we’ve got a waiting list.”
But despite tough times, long-time donors have kept them afloat giving more because they knew others were giving less because of the struggling economy, Edge said.
She invited listeners to come down and see and hear where their dollars are invested — saying the laughter and joy are more than worth the price of a donation.
“It’s not like anything you’ve ever experienced,” she said.
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