(Riverton, WY) – The Boys and Girls Club of Riverton has been “bombarded with kids” since it moved to Ashgrove Elementary School this summer, Branch Director Jacque Stoldt reported this week.
Daily club attendance for the first two weeks of school rose from an average of 37 children last year to 59 this year, Stoldt told the Fremont County School District 25 Board of Trustees on Tuesday – and “we are continuing to grow.”
“Right now, our average is 62 kids a day,” Stoldt said. “It’s phenomenal what we (can do) because we have so much great operating space. We have separate rooms for so many things.”
So far, she said, the club has designated separate spaces for activities like art, science, and playing games.
They’re also utilizing the gymnasium and the cafeteria, and they’re working on filling up the library and developing their technology center, Stoldt said.
“The other really neat space that we have is (the) tween room,” she continued. “It’s just for our kids who are in fourth grade and 10 years old and up.”
The separate space for older children has been a “blessing in disguise,” Stoldt said, because “our tweens love it, so we’re actually getting kids who are older than we would have ever ben able to even accept.”
“We’ve got new ones coming in and they’re loving it (because) they have their own space,” she said. “They’re still doing all the same programming that our little guys are doing, but it’s on their time and with (their) age group.”
The shift has resulted in improved behavior among younger club members who previously spent a lot of time “competing for the big kids’ attention,” Stoldt added.
“We didn’t realize just what a difference it made to have them separated,” she said. “Our behavior (problems) have gone to almost nonexistent because our little guys aren’t trying to get the big kids’ attention by doing naughty things.”
Future plans
Moving forward, Stoldt said, the club is going to focus on attracting more teenagers to the program, beginning by hosting a monthly “teen night” starting in October.
“By next year, we are planning to have a full-on teen room (for) the teens,” she said. “We’re actually really hoping that by summertime we can get that completely implemented and get some of those teens in off the street.”
The club is also developing its community partnerships, she said, with plans to visit Frontier Academy next month to work on career readiness skills with students using virtual reality technology, for example.
Central Wyoming College and the Fremont Local Market are interested in using the club kitchen, Stoldt said, and R Recreation is planning to provide some “toddler programming” in the gymnasium.
“The other thing that we are going to get started is (a) homeschool physical education program and a homeschool STEM program,” she said. “(We’re) just expanding out in the community and doing lots of things that we couldn’t do before.”
She concluded her report by thanking the board for supporting the Boys and Girls Club and inviting the trustees to attend the organization’s upcoming community open house, which is scheduled to take place 5:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10, at Ashgrove Elementary School, 510 N. First St.
For more information call Stoldt at (307) 277-9712.