NAMPA — It doesn’t look like a home at first sight. It’s a plain, unassuming building with gym and police sub-station attached. But according to Mitch Minnette, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Nampa, this is home to hundreds of Nampa-area youth after school until 6:30 p.m.
To see what Minnette sees, take a tour. There’s a kitchen and living-area space with rooms for learning, creating, playing and socializing. If you’re a kid, this is the best “My Space” around: four-square, foosball, a state-of-the-art gymnasium, teen center, good food, laughter, friends and family.
And while the features of the Boys & Girls Club of Nampa may attract youth to its facility, those aren’t what keeps them coming back. After all, the heart of the home is the people in it. Not one person, as Minnette is quick to tell you: “This is not a Mitch accomplishment, but a community one.”
It’s an accomplishment twelve years in the making. “I work for the best board of directors around, great people making sure we fulfill our mission.”
The mission to enable young people to become “productive, caring, and responsible citizens” grew from a need identified by community leaders in 1999. Nampa needed more after-school and summer programs for youth.
“Every kid is at risk of making one bad decision,” Minnette says, “and every kid has the right to find a place where they are treated equal and valued.”
The club has an open-doors philosophy: Every kid. Any kid. Membership fees are kept low at $10 a year and, during school breaks, the club operates on an all-day (7:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m.) schedule.
In the fall of 2000, the Nampa club opened its doors to 46 youth between the ages of six and 18. Since Minnette became its director in 2005, the club has grown to 229 members with a professional staff of 13-20 people and a new expansion of more than 13,000 square feet.
“We were literally bursting at our seams,” Minnette says.
And the community answered the call.
Presiding over the $2.1 million capital campaign with the board of directors was Minnette, who says, “We did it differently. Instead of constructing the expansion and then paying for it, we raised the money first,”
The campaign took 13 months and Minnette will repeatedly give credit to “a community that really believes in supporting and making youth a priority.”
The club’s honored mission of prevention has been one of mentorship from the top down. “My board of directors mentors me,” Minnette says. He in turn mentors the youth development professionals, those that spend their afternoons with club members, and who he believes are the most influential. “They are out on the floor having fun with the kids, getting to know them, modeling important life skills.”
In addition, the police assist in building relationships.
“Having them right here at the facility makes the Nampa club unique,” Minnette says. “The kids don’t see them as ‘Oh no, the police!’ but as Sergeant Randall who helps on the rock wall or takes me hiking in the summer.”
Perhaps the best mentors are the youth themselves.
“We see a lot of the older kids being great role models to the younger ones. And we learn as much from the kids as we give,” he said.
Mentorship can change a child’s life forever and impact the community at large.
“Trust me,” Minnette says, “there are doctors, lawyers, and teachers out there.”
And he would know. On his office wall is a framed newspaper article with photographs of children playing soccer. In the middle of the dog-pile is a little boy intent on scoring the goal. “Small Timer,” the headline reads. The boy is Mitch Minnette when he was a member of the Lewiston Boys and Girls Club.
“I grew up as a club kid, working in the Lewiston club through high school and college, and always dreamed of becoming a director,” he said.
After receiving a degree in business from Lewis- Clark State College, he took a job as a Boys and Girls Club area director in central Oregon for six-and-a-half years. But it wasn’t until he got the job as the director of the Nampa club that he felt like his dream had come true. He had come back home to a community where he felt he could make a difference.
“It’s a long-term process to help, support, and change a kid’s life,” Minnette says. “The national boys and girls club organization has been around for 105 years, the Lewiston club for 64. The Nampa club just reached its 12-year mark, so we’re just beginning to see our first group of 18 year olds graduate, go out into the community, and make a difference.”
“And there’s a new group of six year olds every year,” he adds, smiling.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s a Boys and Girls Club director in their midst.
Source http://www.idahopress.com
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