Boys and Girls growing rural

MADISON — Before last month, Jenneca Graber-Grace had few opportunities to interact with her fellow sixth-graders after school ended. Her house sits 30 minutes west of William H. Wetsel Middle School in Madison County, far from friends and activities.
Now, however, the 12-year-old spends her afternoons at the school making scrapbooks, playing games and doing homework with classmates. Graber-Grace is one of more than 30 middle-schoolers regularly attending the Boys and Girls Club of Madison, which opened at the beginning of March.
“I get to be with my friends and it’s lots of fun,” Graber-Grace said.
The new club held its official grand opening Sunday, and the event featured some star power: Football Hall of Famer Howie Long, who attended a Boys and Girls Club while growing up in Massachusetts, thanked the community for generating the money and enthusiasm needed to start another branch of the organization in Central Virginia.
Traditionally based in urban centers, Boys and Girls Clubs have begun sprouting up in rural areas in recent years. One opened in Orange County six years ago, and officials in Greene and Louisa counties have expressed interest in having clubs of their own.
As the population of rural counties in Central Virginia increases, there is an expanded need for after-school arts, academic and leadership activities for youth. School-sponsored programs and day care have traditionally been the only options for Madison students.
“There are a lot of kids that aren’t being served by youth sports or the other activities offered,” said Christy Cloniger, the secretary-treasurer of the new club’s board of directors. “There’s a large population out there that needed something fun.”
In the month since the club opened, based out of an auxiliary building on the Wetsel and Madison County High School campus, 31 students have enrolled. Officials expect many more to join in the summer.
The club is already offering a host of activities, including sewing, a book club and treasure hunts. But the Boys and Girls Club also emphasizes personal development and conducts a conflict resolution program, homework sessions and lessons on lawyers and judges.
“We want them to have fun, but we also want them to build character,” said Rae Parker, the club’s service director.
The outpouring of support from the Madison community has been overwhelming, club officials said. Typically it takes a community about one-and-a-half to two years to form a new club, said Timothy Sinatra, the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Charlottesville/Albemarle. Madison, however, was able to pull it all together in 10 months.
Sinatra says that in his 19 years working for the organization he has “never seen a community come together so fast and get the funding and support to do it.”
Though it has only been operating for a month, the club has already been affecting the lives of Madison families, club officials said. Several parents have told Parker that since their children enrolled, the students have gotten better grades and begun taking more responsibility at home, Parker said.
Long, who played 13 years for the Oakland Raiders and whose son Chris just completed a stellar football career at the University of Virginia, can attest to the impact the Boys and Girls Club can have on a teenager.
Growing up in the rough Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, and shuttling between the homes of different family members, Long said he found a “safe sanctuary” in the organization.