Homework and dodgeball: Club helps kids with academics, activities and health

Vince Lovato

Leader reporter

vlovato@leaderadvertiser.com

POLSON – About 40 Boys and Girls Club members sit quietly reading books and doing homework in the basement of St. Andrew Episcopal Church.

It is the quiet before the storm.

Unit Director Claire Gutschenritter suddenly declares that activities will begin.

And kindergarteners to teenagers start their transition, satisfied that their academic chores are complete.

“My mom and dad want us to come here and get my homework done,” said Linderman Elementary School student David Bjorge, under his flaming red hair. He wears a University of Nebraska sweatshirt just because his principal attended Kansas. “We also get to play dodgeball a lot.”

With all the bustle and enthusiasm, it’s hard to believe the program was on the ropes last fall.

“August of 2013 was a critical time,” said club board member Michal Delgado. “And the misconception is that many people think we get funding from the schools or from the national organization or government. We do get some grant funding from (the Department of Justice) but not enough to sustain the club that’s growing as fast as ours is.”

Without key personnel and an unclear future for funding, the board worked feverishly to bring on Gutschenritter, who runs the education and activities programs and started Sept. 30, and Executive Director Aric Cooksley, who started in February.

“We’re not necessarily in better shape financially, but what we have key personnel in place with Aric and Claire, who really embraced our club and our Polson kids,” Delgado said. “She is so well-grounded in skill and leadership of the kids and how this program benefits them and she continues to achieve goals of academic success, citizenship and healthy lifestyles, while making it a place where kids want to be, not where they have to be.”

Rainn Brisbin, 9, a fourth grader at Linderman Elementary School, said she attended an after-school program at school but that ended.

Now she likes to get her homework done so she can, “play dodgeball and hang with my friends.”

The number of club members doubled since Gutschenritter, 29, started delivering a more structured program that rewards kids for their own diligence.

“The culture at the club is not that you can go there and run wild. There was a lot of resentment for changes I made when I came,” she said. “They moaned at everything I did. But growing together helped a lot as they accepted me as a leader.”

She immediately got rid of the TV and started cooperative games to help the students learn to work together and trust each other. She also has them read and complete homework before activities start. There are also consequences for bad behavior, which include “Dirty Duty” -- cleaning the activities and snack areas.

When the older kids complained that the co-op games were too juvenile, she met with them and they decided to do some clean up work together to learn the same skills. With every positive day of cooperation, the members, as a group, earn their way to a pizza party.

“The kids are guiding it and I’m getting a lot of positive feedback,” said Gutschenritter, a newlywed and mother. “They really like an achievable task they can be successful at in a short amount of time.”

She tries to balance hard work with rewards to teach the members what to expect as they grow older.

“Life is not all fun. You have to manage expectations,” said Gutschenritter, who graduated from Northwestern and earned her masters at the University of Montana. “When you actually reap the benefits of your own hard work no one has to tell you what you can and can’t do. You will find your own interests.”

More kids means the board and director have to keep funding streaming in.

The club started a 20-2000 campaign, asking donors to pledge $20 a month with the goal of getting at least 2,000 donations every month.

“That would allow us to know what to expect for a budget every month,” Delgado said.