Westside Member Given National Recognition

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Digital Arts?
Jasmine Stovall from the Westside Unit seems to think so. Jasmine recently found through the Digital Arts Program that she could apply her passion for conservation with her artistic abilities to create something very special…the result was “Tree Hugger’s Magazine.”
“I created Tree Hugger’s Magazine to let kids know how important it is to get involved in saving the environment; starting right at their local Boys & Girls Club.”

Jasmine submitted the magazine cover to the Westside Unit’s Digital Arts Festival, a program intended to teach members ages 6 to 18 how to create computer-generated art. She never dreamed that her entry would make it all way to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America Digital Arts Festival… and win!

“I am very proud and excited for Jasmine,” says Tracey Culliver, Digital Arts Program Director at Westside. “She is a very creative and focused young lady who gives 100% to every thing she does. I can see her accomplishing great things in her future because of her dedication and hard work.”

To recognize her accomplishments, BGCA will provide Jasmine and Ms. Culliver with an all expenses paid trip to Minneapolis, MN where they will tour the city’s many art exhibits and various other attractions. Jasmine will be given her award during a special presentation, July 21-25.

“I am very excited for my trip to Minnesota,” says Jasmine. “I am really eager to see all of the exhibits, museums, and other things they have planned. By the end of the trip, I think I will have gained a better understanding of art and technology in general.”

For Jasmine, this entire process has been about more than just an award for an art project, it has been a strong reinforcement of the message she delivers every day about protecting the environment. Working very hard to educate her family, friends, church youth group and Club on the benefits of recycling, Jasmine is sometimes made fun of because of her views.

“I’ve always thought of myself as a tree hugger,” says Jasmine. “It means that you like to help the environment, so it is really not a bad thing at all!”

Childhood Restored & The Slug in My Pocket

To take a walk through a Boys & Girls Club is heart warming. The body language, the facial expressions, the energy, the innocence, the uncontained joy of childhood – it’s catching. That’s why I love to give tours.

A few months ago I was conducting a tour with one of our best and most faithful supporters who had arranged for a foundation director to come see the Clubs in action.

During the tour, while my guests were engaged with a staff member, one of our Unit Directors handed me a slug from a spent bullet. When I asked where he had gotten it, he pointed to a wide eyed innocent little guy who had found it in front of his house. I put the spent slug in my pocket.

All kids are welcome at our Clubs and most of them are pretty good kids, too, from loving and nurturing families. At the same time, the more kids we serve, the more of them we get to know, the more we understand just how tough some kids have it. For those kids, we become a refuge, a home away from home, a second family, a place to escape – a place to be a kid again.

I still carry that slug from a stray bullet in my pocket with my change. Sometimes, during the course of a hard day, when I put my hand in my pocket I am reminded of why I do the work I do. At night I place my change in the dish on my dresser, and when I pick it up again the next morning that stray bullet slug reminds me of why all of us – staff, board, guild, volunteers, parents – work so hard.

There are too many kids growing up in our community, right under our collective nose, where stray bullets in the front yard are commonplace; no big deal. Especially for those kids who need us the most, we can, we do make a difference, every single day and over the course of many childhoods restored.

BGCM Youth of the Year Competes in Regional Race

Monica Ramos has come a long way since leaving the busy streets of Van Nuys, California with her family for their new home in Omaha. After a shaky start, they would eventually settle no more than two blocks away from the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands’ Mammel Unit in South Omaha.

Monica remembers being very lonely at first, missing all of her friends back home. Lonely that is, until she walked into the Club for the first time.

“It was very cool, you know,” Monica recalls. “Everyone was dancing and there was music playing. It really made me feel like I was back home in California.”

Over the next few years she would blossom, becoming involved in just about every facet of Boys & Girls Clubs activities.
Her passion for learning and her leadership within the Club would soon earn Monica the highest honor a club kid can receive, the Youth of the Year award. But she would not stop there. Monica would soon win the distinction of Youth of the Year for the entire Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands organization, and eventually go on to win the state competition .

After the conclusion of the state competition, Monica was invited to compete in the regional competition in Chicago. Though she did not win at regionals, Monica represented BGCM in grand fashion, sharing her powerful story of struggle, hope and success in front of many.

Shelli Henry, Youth of the Year Coordinator accompanied Monica to Chicago.

“It has been a real joy working with Monica over the past few months,” says Henry. “She is an amazing young woman who truly appreciates every opportunity she has been given through her involvement with the Club, and we could not be more proud of the job she has done.”

“I am very honored,” Monica says. “This has all been such a blessing to me and my family.”

Now that the competition is over, Monica says she can begin to focus on life again. The recent Omaha South grad plans on attending college in the fall, using her strengths in leadership to focus her studies on psychology.

BGCM is very proud of what Monica has been able to accomplish and wishes her the best of luck in the future.

Download Newsletter / summer-2008

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