2009-2010 Annual Report - Boys and Girls Club | of Harrisonburg ...

Latino Outreach Successful Through La Casita
Since late 2009, the Boys & Girls Clubs
of Harrisonburg and Rockingham
County (BGCHR) have actively engaged
in recruiting some 35 Latino children
ages 5-18 to an outreach program we are
conducting in the Valley View Mobile
Home Park. This community is located
north of the Harrisonburg City limits and
in Rockingham County. This location puts
the children out of attendance range for our
Clubs.
The fact that their parents work
long hours in the area’s industries that
include poultry plants and landscaping
businesses makes evening transportation
home from the closest clubs a problem that
is difficult to overcome. As a result, two
BGCHR employees, who are Club alumni
and former Youths of the Year, have taken
the Boys & Girls Clubs to these children.
Geo Bonilla and Miguel Alcauter-
Rangel, have established La Casita (Little
House) in a former Weed and Seed
building located at the front of the mobile
home park. After introducing themselves
to each parent in that community and
repeated visits conducted in Spanish, they
have gained the confidence and trust of
each and have succeeded in recruiting close
to 35 youths to the location. As a result of
their tireless efforts, these children are now
faithful attendees to La Casita on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Fridays after school. Basil
Marin, another BGCHR former Youth of
the Year, turned Club employee, is also
bilingual and has contributed to the La
Casita initiative by working with the kids
and helping with the overall programming.
The outreach’s efforts did not
pass unnoticed by the community in
2009-2010. Others stepped forward to
help make La Casita a special place for this
underserved community.
In her culminating pursuit of
the Girl Scouts’ coveted Gold Award,
Mary Kern, a rising senior at Turner
Ashby High School, reached out to the
Boys & Girls Clubs with her community
improvement project last summer in an
effort to transform a small building into a
shining example of what heart can bring to
a community.
Last school year, Mary, who
already holds prestigious Girl Scout
awards that are prerequisites for
the Gold Award, learned about the
Boys & Girls Clubs establishment
of La Casita (little house) as an
extension of the organization to the
Hispanic children living in the Valley
View Mobile Home Park, north
of Harrisonburg. These children attend
Rockingham County Schools, but are
unable to attend the after school program
on their campuses, because of having to
rely solely on school bus transportation
home each day. In its on-going effort to
reach out to the community’s children
who need them most, the Clubs
have taken their youth development
programming to the children and have set
up shop in a former Weed & Seed funded
building in the Mobile Home Park.
When Mary learned about this outreach
effort, she decided that her community
improvement for her run at the Gold
Award had to be La Casita.
She began planning her work
in May, assessing what the physical
location’s needs were, exploring how
she could help meet those needs,
and recruiting volunteers to help her in the
effort. She has used the summer months to
do her fundraising and to gather necessary
supplies and playground equipment for
improving La Casita. Eddie Edwards Signs
provided the signage for the Club.
On August 21, she worked her
plan. Her efforts culminated in a work
day at La Casita that began at 8 a.m. with
12 volunteers on hand to fix the roof,
paint, clean up, and bring in the supplies,
furnishings, curtains and blinds she
gathered for the 30 children to use when at
the club. Mary had a swing set placed on
the site earlier in the summer.
“I have really enjoyed working
on this project. Everyone has been so
helpful. We have a missions team at my
church that has helped me so much, and I
appreciate all they have done already. We
were committed to starting early and going
as long as necessary on that workday to get
the job done.”
Providing a
Club Kids enjoy time on the playgro
with Mary Kern, who pursued La Casita
community improvement project for Girl
The Clubs’ Geo
Bonilla heads up the La Casita outreach
program. When speaking about Mary and
her tireless efforts to plan and implement
this project he said, “I have been totally
blown away by this young lady’s drive,
planning ability, and commitment to make
this project happen. I think it started out as
just a community project for her, but now,
she has taken the whole project and the
kids to her heart. That points to just how
special she truly is.”
When the La Casita youths and
children entered the building after the
first day back in school, they were amazed
to see how Mary and her volunteers had
transformed their Club. From landscaping
to bean bags, La Casita reflected the care,
time and dedication that strangers had
given in an effort to make La Casita a
special place to be after school.