After School Programs Quotes

Growing up, I had a lot of family members who worked in the Dallas Independent School District, and they shared stories firsthand with me about kids stepping into the cafeteria hungry before practice, or waiting for the school building to open the next morning just so they could get a meal.

In Chicago, you have an absence of strong family units, and that absence gets filled by gangs. You have a failure in the school system, after-school programs and other social programs to help keep kids off the streets. Amnesty International speaks to that in some way, by keeping these issues in the forefront.

When moms stayed home, it was easier just to let the kids play around the house. But as women entered the workplace and the extended family dissolved, someone else had to pick up the slack on the child-care front. Extracurricular activities fit the bill perfectly, promising not only supervision but also enrichment.

I was a young kid, and the YMCA was my second home, where my mom was dropping me off for seven, eight hours. I'd spend the day doing what I love: hoop.

I was always thankful for the YMCA. Of course, growing up, you don't really think about it, because when you're a kid, you're in your own world. But back then, it was just so much. I'm going to go the Y, hanging out, playing games all day, playing basketball.

Violence is a problem we all want to solve. I want to make sure that kids learn to deal with anger by learning how to talk with people to solve problems. Here in the United States Senate I want to make sure we have safe schools, safe neighborhoods and good things for kids to do after school!

For thousands and thousands of American kids, libraries are the only safe place they can find to study, a haven free from the dangers of street or the numbing temptations of television. As schools cut back services, the library looms even more important to countless children.

The Boys and Girls club was basically a second home for me, and I always credit it with keeping me out of trouble. From the ages of 6 to 16, I was there nearly every day.

When I was coming up as a kid, there were programs that kept me out of trouble and on the straight and narrow in South Central Los Angeles, and I always felt that when I got to a stage where I could provide similar opportunities to kids then I would do that.

That first responsibility as a school board member - meals for latch-key children - was absolutely critical in my understanding of the extraordinary problems of poverty.

It's tough for kids to stay focused if they don't have something to get them off the streets... that's where the kids can get into the bad things.

I grew up in the Boys & Girls Club. That's where I really started playing all sports, and that's why I'm a big advocate for the work they do.

Children spend the greater part of their time outside the school. Here they come under the influence of the street and frequently of hostile hooligan elements. Questions concerning the organization of the children's out-of-school hours, the Young Pioneer movement, the provision of libraries and workshops and social work for the children, are of tremendous importance

I was a teacher. I also worked at Harlem Children's Zone. I moved back to Baltimore and opened up an after-school, out-of-school program on the west side and then worked in two public school districts, in Baltimore and Minneapolis.

When I was a young man, I worked at the Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis, Missouri, and another boys club called Matthews-Dickey.

I volunteer with School on Wheels in Los Angeles, and I also tutor with Koreh L.A.

Let's talk about after-school programs generally. They're supposed to be educational programs, right? And that's what they're supposed to do; they're supposed to help kids who can't - who don't get fed at home, get fed so that they do better at school. Guess what? There's no demonstrable evidence they're actually doing that.

I've also been working with the Challengers Club in the inner city of Los Angeles for 15 years now, I guess, and it's essentially an inner-city recreation club for boys and girls.

When budget cuts happen - which has been happening a lot in this country - after-school athletics and after-school music are some of the first things to go.

In a world where people are hungry for quick fixes and sound bites, for instant gratification, there's no patience for the long, slow rebuilding process: implementing after-school programs, hiring more community workers to act as mentors, adding more job training programs in marginalized areas.

Kids need somewhere to go, so they're not bored on the street.

One thing I can say as far as people from black communities dealing with trauma or PTSD is putting some trauma centers or some type of therapy sessions and some after-school programs for the kids, so they can have a real outlet to express themselves.

Getting involved with the Boys and Girls Club helped keep me and my sister from getting in trouble.

You prevent kids from joining gangs by offering after-school programs, sports, mentoring, and positive engagement with adults. You intervene with gang members by offering alternatives and employment to help redirect their lives. You deal with areas of high gang crime activity with real community policing. We know what works.

I don't know what compassionate conservative means. Does it mean cutting kids out of after school programs, Does it mean drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge? Does it mean sending kids to Iraq without body armor that's state of the art?