Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning. It is 8.39. I have a couple of guests joining me in studio from the Geneva Boys and Girls Club. First off, we have the grant manager from the BGC, and that's Stephanie Aneer. Good morning, Steph.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Good morning, Paul. It's nice to be here.
Paul Szmal: And also joining us is the team program and junior staff supervisor, Zu Kande. Zu, good morning. How are you? How you doing? How you feeling?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Ah, feeling good this morning. You're streaming through the window.
Paul Szmal: Yes.
All right. Stephanie, I want to just start with you, because grants are a term that we hear used all the time, and I'm sure they have different applications for different purposes. But in your particular purpose as grant manager for the Boys and Girls Club, what are the grants that you're looking for, and how does your job work?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Yeah, that's a great question. Grants are really big, and the term's used all the time. I was specifically brought on board at the Boys and Girls Club to work on the new LEAPS grant, so I'll especially talk about that one. There's a variety of small local grants that you might just get a lump sum of money up front, and you're supposed to spend it towards a certain goal. In this case, this is a grant from New York State Office of Children and Family Services, and this grant's a reimbursable grant. So that means that we're keeping really careful track of how we're spending the money, and we're going to get reimbursed on a monthly basis. So there's a lot more accountability with a grant like this, a fair amount of reporting, both in terms of the impact on the kids and really looking at how the dollars are spent.
Paul Szmal: Now, you mentioned in particular a LEAPS grant. What is that?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Yeah, this is a brand new grant, so there's different grants that have had similar names in the past, but LEAPS is a new one, and it stands for Learning and Enrichment Afterschool Program Supports, and it's really meant to focus on afterschool care programs that are based in the community, and it's really focusing on kids ages 5 to 12 and the opportunities they have during those afterschool programs.
Paul Szmal: Now, is this something that the Boys and Girls Club had to go through an application process to get?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Yeah, a pretty big application process. So over the summer before I came on board, Chris Lavin and Susan Tullison were working really hard on this grant, and we're really excited to hold it.
Paul Szmal: Fantastic.
Let me switch over to Zoo here for a second. We'll get Zoo into the conversation. Now, you are the teen program and junior staff supervisor, so what does your day-to-day job function entail?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Well, my day-to-day is two-part. One, what I do is I manage a group of 20 junior staff. We have three different sites that we have them at as far as both our location, the Boys and Girls, and also North Street. So basically what they do is they support the young members there. So we do trainings where they do peer support with the young people.
Now, I also create programs, which is personal development workshops, to actually help them with social skills. Like for example, right now we have a workshop at the library that we have every Monday, and it's called Rethink. And it's designed to be able to give them some real skills, dealing with personal development, if you're dealing with self-confidence, self-discipline, self-awareness, communication skills, things that they can use on purpose in their life. It has to do at home or in school. So we've been doing this once a week. It's been very successful. We got a lot of support from the high school with the students that come over, and they're learning. They're understanding some things that can really help them if they implement it. And that's the key. I believe that when we talk about change, it has to first start with self. So we're doing this because we understand that if we can get the students helping one by one, then we can be able to help our community. So it's been working. The kids have been coming through.
So from four to five is teens, but then also from 530 to 630, we have the adult section as well. Because you and I know parents need personal development and improvement as well.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Yeah. Parenting always brings up so many different issues that sometimes you're not prepared to face.
Paul Szmal: Exactly.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: And when we talk about personal development and improvement, this is a daily process. I know a lot of times we think because we're adults, we done learned everything. But the reality is we did it. And then our kids are modeling our behavior. So my thing is this, if we can help the parents start looking at themself different, the kids are looking at the parents. So it's just a nice synergy, you know what I'm saying, of development. And we're doing it. And it's been working. We got some things in place. We got some more projects that's going to be coming up in the spring and the summertime as well with the youth.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I'd love to hear about those in a minute. Let me go back to Stephanie here. The LEAPS grant now that that is in place, how is that going to be utilized by the Boys and Girls Club? What different programs are going to wind up getting benefits from this? And are there some new programs that are going to be created as a result?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Yeah, the Boys and Girls Club currently is doing quite a few programs in the after school that already exist. But the goals of the LEAPS grant are really focused around three things, which is academic and enrichment opportunities. So in that vein, we're trying to expand and improve the tutoring that happens at the club. We actually have hired tutors from HWS, and they've been trained under an America Reads model and the science of reading to really work with students on trying to help move the needle in that case, because our school scores on reading need a lot of improvement. So we figure if we have this kids and we're working on tutoring at the club, we can incorporate that. And we're also trying to include more enrichment activities. So one of the things we're doing is clubs at the club on Mondays, we're bringing in different people from the community. So maybe 4-H, Girl Scouts, ceramics to try to focus on different things that the kids want.
The other main goals under LEAPS revolve around mental wellness. And to that vein, we're hiring a part-time counselor at the club who's going to be running small groups with the kids around whatever issues the staff are seeing need the most attention. So that could be peer relationships, that could be coping with loss, whether due to death or incarceration, that could be around anxiety or depression. So just trying to get kids talking about what's bothering them and learning some tools. And the last piece is really family engagement. And that ties in really well to what Zu was just mentioning. Because we want to bring the families together with the kids and celebrate with family fun nights and different events. But we also want to give parents more support, more ability to model and advocate for their kids. And so these parenting workshops are fantastic.
Paul Szmal: And Zu, how about some of the new programs that might possibly be on the horizon that y'all are working on?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Okay. So one of the ones that we have coming up in the springtime is a youth entrepreneurship program called Young Money. What I realize, a lot of young people, they like money, right, that motivates them. But also, too, a lot of young people do not have plans on going to college. So what happens with them, right? They're creative, they got some ideas, and they want to be able to express it in a creative way. So basically, this entrepreneurship program is just designed to get their mindset prepared to what it's going to take to be a successful entrepreneur. Because anybody can start a business, but everybody's not successful. So we talk about some things like that.
Also, too, right now, we also have a job placement program for teenagers from 16 to 17 that are looking for employment. I think that's important as well. You know, put them in a position where they can be independent, make money, but also understanding how money works in today's economy. We also have workshops like that prepared for them, and also that job placement for the teens.
Paul Szmal: And Stephanie, I would think that without the opportunity to get these different types of grants that are available, it would be extremely difficult to do any of the kinds of programs that we're talking about.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Absolutely. All of this funding is really crucially important because the Boys & Girls Club is free to every member right now. So we're really dependent on state funding and grants and donations from our really generous community to make this happen.
Paul Szmal: Are there any other grants that are perhaps on the horizon that you can talk about?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Nothing specific, but we're really looking to expand our teen program. So that's probably going to be our next area of focus. There's been a lot of focus in the past on our First Thousand Days toddler time program, which we're really excited to be running out of the community center as well. But the teens haven't gotten quite as much attention. And this internship that is available for junior staff, I think, is something that ZOO is really growing. So I'm excited because that internship is also involving all of the workshops that you're talking about, and you're able to be pushing into the schools and doing some mindfulness. So I think that it's really wonderful to see the teen program growing. That's a big component nationally of the Boys & Girls Club.
Paul Szmal: Let's talk about that internship program.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Okay. Well, right now we're partnered with the high school. We do have two study halls in there. It's called High Vibration. And it's designed to be able to help youth that deals with anxiety, deal with stress. As you know, they have a lot of things going on personally, right? And it makes it difficult for them to excel in school. So this particular workshop is just designed to help them be successful personally, right? And just giving them skills. And these little skills that we've been giving them, they work, especially if you implement it. And it's something that you have to do continuously. So just creating a new energy, a new environment in Geneva is important. And I know people are seeing our flyers out there, they're hearing our name more. And that's important because we want the community to understand that, one, we love our teens. We want to see them be successful. But it takes all of us. It's not just us. We need the support of the community and mostly the parents. You know, I understand that parents, they work, you know, it can be very stressful, especially if you're a single parent. That's why we got certain things in place for parents at the Boys and Girls Club. But we also understand if they get involved in what the teens are doing and letting them know they care about what they're doing, we'll start to see some things differently happen. And we're prepared to help, but we need the parents' support. So I hope definitely people who are listening, if you have teens or even yourself, if you feel like, you know, you want to get some more skill sets, definitely come to this workshop because it will help.
Paul Szmal: And is there registration required for this?
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Oh no, it's free.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, it's free.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: We have refreshments. You know, thank you, Frank, at the library, you know, allowing us to be able to do this. And it feels good because every week, you know, our attendance is growing. And I believe that if we just stay consistent and we get the support, we will see some different things in Geneva.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely.
So if people want to attend one of these workshops again, one more time, location and time.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Okay. It's every Monday for the teens. It's from four to five. And adults or parents, it's from 530 to 630. Every Monday at the Geneva Public Library. All right. Just ask where the work on personal development workshop at, and they'll let you know where I'm at.
Paul Szmal: All right. Fantastic. Thanks for stopping in this morning, Zoom. Much appreciated. And Stephanie, thank you as well.
Stephanie Annear, Zook Conte: Great.
Paul Szmal: Great to hear the good news on the LEAPS grant for the Boys and Girls Club of Geneva. It is 8.50 on FLX morning.
