Scott Swanson
Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of several articles in which we are focusing on efforts being made by local organizations to provide Friday activities to keep youngsters active due to Sweet Home’s four-day school week.
At Little Promises, the news that Sweet Home School District schools were switching to a four-day school week was an opportunity to expand the preschool and after-school care program already established last year.
It began last year when Susie Burns, a longtime teacher at Little Promises, decided that she wanted to give children the opportunity to go beyond their normal life experiences, beyond the three R’s, in learning.
During an Oregon Trail learning activity, Alyss Redfern, left, takes questions from Eli Jennings, center and Dakota Melkvik. They played a game in which Alyss asked questions trying to get the boys to refer to modern items or use words that a pioneer would not have been familiar with.
She established OK Kids for first- through sixth-graders to “provide a safe environment for children on Fridays where they can explore, experience, learn, create and have fun,” said Burns, an expert archer and hiker who has walked every trail in Oregon, as well as the entire length of the Pacific Coast Trail.
“We wanted to create a camp-out field day experience that extended beyond what they learned at school, hands-on, where they can apply and try and experiment,” she said. “We wanted this to be more extensive than the type of things they get at school.”
The program has included such themes as archery, geology, entymology (study of insects), wilderness survival, roller skating and a bikeathon that raised $370 for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. The bike event came after a chapter on bicycling, that included a visit from a policeman to talk about bike safety.
A local girl, Rebecca Pate, whose survival depends on frequent visits to Doernbecher’s Children’s Hospital for treatment of a digestive disorder, visited OK Kids to talk about her experiences.
“It helped them understand what it feels like going there, what the hospital does to make children feel more comfortable,” Burns said.
With the expansion from afternoon to all day Fridays, OK Kids will include homework help and other options including reading, computer time and various interaction with other participants. There will also be a Bible lesson, movies (with discussion afterwards), cooking and sports.
But the themes will be a large part of the day. Plans this year include forays into the Oregon Trail, survival, archery, roller skating, another bike-a-thon, geology, entomology and hiking.
Burns said she’s tried to keep the themes “well-rounded.”
“When we did hiking, there were kids who don’t walk. They hiked 10 miles when we were done. We purposely try not to do what’s available, such as a sports program like soccer or baseball. We try to find other areas so kids can try new things.”
Cost is $10 a day per child, between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sponsorship opportunities are available for people who would like to help a child.
Burns said Little Promises staff has made a big effort to keep things affordable. The community has helped – a lot, she said. One person has donated a computer and printer; another brought a “big load” of supplies, paper and pencils and other school supplies. One woman has volunteered to cook and teach the art to the children. One home-schooling mother said she’d help tutor youngsters.
“It’s exciting to see the community so interested in children, so willing to pass on what they know to kids for free, to volunteer their time,” she said. “It’s amazing how people have responded, the variety of people. I feel that the community is ready to help.”
Burns said one of the reasons why she was interested in starting the program is that she knows from her own experience, as a teacher for 30 years and as a parent with a son who had some trouble finding his niche in life, that traditional academics and topics aren’t for every youngster.
“What’s exciting about this program is I get a number of kids who don’t fit in anywhere else, like in sports, but they find themselves,” she said. “They aren’t good at sports or spelling bees but they find out they’re really good at geology and they win prizes. I can hook them up with a geology club or the 4-H.”
Some of the students have discovered a talent for archery and she’s connected them with opportunities in that area.
“What is most exciting is to see their eyes light up and their parents get ecstatic,” Burns said. “I had a son like this. He sat on the bench in sports. But he loved entomology. To find a place and see that you’re good at something and not fail for once, it’s life-changing. They’re not stupid. They’re not a failure.”