Denver’s Girls Inc. Takes Fun Seriously… in Steering Kids Toward High Tech Careers

A round the rooms of the spacious two-story building hang large posters displaying photos of women, mostly minority women who have made it.

There's Terry McMillan, author of the best-selling "Waiting to Exhale" which became a hit film. Two poets who also write novels. Julia Alvarex and Sandra Cisneros, and the nations top child advocate. Marian Wright Edelman, who heads the Children's Defense Fund, are among the prominent on exhibit.

This is the clubhouse of Girls Inc. of Metro Denver and the posters are there for a purpose: positive reminders for the 700 members — all girls who come from the surrounding, hard-pressed largely Hispanic neighborhood with high crime. teen pregnancy and school dropout rates — that they, too, can make it.

"Everything we do here is fun. This is not a program where kids are sent by the courts," says Christine Soto, the agency's upbeat executive director.

"Girls come here because they enjoy it and it is a safe place to be. Everything is fun but it very often has a serious intent and purpose."

Abstinence as Choice One

For pure fun the $431,000-a-year after school, multi-service youth development agency offers a wide variety of sports ranging from basketball, softball, volleyball and soccer to tennis and karate. Membership in the club is $1 a year entitling girls to join classes in gymnastics and dance — modern jazz, tap and ballet — along with staging plays, arts and crafts, painting, gardening, photography and numerous other on and off-site diversions.

Membership on team sports cost an extra $5 — to help pay for access to Denver Recreation Department facilities.

On the sober side. Girls Inc. begins teaching girls, starting when they are eight, how to communicate better with their parents — an introduction to gaining knowledge in how to avoid the perils of an adolescent pregnancy — and help motivate them to go on to college and enter high-paying career fields.

"Our assumption is that if a child can talk openly with a parent about sex she can talk openly about many things. As she is growing up and becoming a sexual being she should be able to talk to her parents about particular issues," Soto explained.

About two-thirds, some 500 of the members, are aged 9 to 12. So the four-module adolescent pregnancy prevention program designed by the Girls Inc. national office in New York City, advances abstinence as the best course. But Soto stresses it is not an abstinence- only program. There are about 70 teenagers in the club (like many other youth development services Soto is having difficulty hanging on to older kids and has recently hired a coordinator to make Girls Inc. programs more attractive to them).

"Girls Inc.'s approach is that abstinence should be the first choice," she said. '"But, realistically, some girls do become sexually active and need to deal with that responsibly — and realistically."

Thinking Career

The pregnancy prevention program's fourth component — "taking care of business" — stresses career planning and reasons for avoiding teen mother-hood. It dovetails with Operation SMART (science, math and technology), also devised by Girls Inc. headquarters, that acquaints kids with computers and science as members of a "Discovery Club" at no extra cost. In addition to exploring environmental issues, astronomy and other subjects, the program focuses on games and puzzles that strengthen math and abstract thinking skills.

Though girls' math and science scores often start out ahead of boys in elementary school, Soto said. They tend to plummet in middle school. "So the idea behind Operation SMART is to keep them active, keep them interested and hope that will transfer to school. And interest them in math and science careers.

"We're introducing girls to a wide range of experience to build their capacity to become responsible adults, including helping them get their home-work done. We hope to put them on the right track so they will become economically self-sufficient so they can feel fulfilled in their lives psychologically and emotionally." The mother of a grown son herself, she added: "I feel parents often need outside help to build this capacity in kids."

Why Girls Only

Soto, a youth worker for 23 years, has been with the agency for more than eight years, joining it in the days when it was still the Girls Club of Denver, which was founded in 1983. It became a Girls Inc. affiliate in 1990 after the parent organization changed its name following a decision by the Boys Clubs of America to admit girls and become the Boys and Girls Clubs of America (see box).

Like the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. Girls Inc. for the most part is an unabashedly single-sex member organization though a few local chapters do accept boys. Observes Soto:

"We really believe, based on our experience, that for a little girl coming into a place that is just for girls and about girls — around the building are tons of posters that celebrate women and their accomplishments — is a very positive experience. All the present staff of six full and five part time youth workers are female. And most of our volunteers are women, too. Parents tell us how their daughters change and blossom in our program. Part of it I think is the environment but also the program and the relationships they develop with other girls."

One of the agency's most popular facilities is a dance studio equipped with exercise bars and mirrors on the first level of the clubhouse, a renovated former office building in sight of Colorado's snow-capped Rockies. The studio is directed by Roseanna Frechette. A local performing artist who believes dancing can profoundly affect her girls by evoking their sense of creativity and personal identity— imbuing them with the confidence to resist involvement with gangs, drugs and pregnancy.

"You can be klutzy or frumpy or fat and still do glissades," she told the Rocky Mountain News earlier this year. "It's not about perfection. Dance should be liberating, not something that makes you feel inadequate." In her 10-hour a week curriculum, she tells the girls not to worry about mistakes or messing up. even in front of an audience — "as long as you do it with style."

Adept Management

What many local observers feel distinguishes Denver's Girls Inc. from other youth service agencies is the quality of its programming and staff. All of its youth workers are college graduates and all have had prior experience at other youth development or recreational agencies as a requisite to being hired.

In-service training is required for new staff before being assigned to a program and all staff undergo periodic training in-house and at national and regional Girls Inc. meetings.

Jeff Pryor of Denver's Anshultz Family Foundation credits Soto's leadership with the program's success. "I think Christine Soto is one of the most effective nonprofit managers in the region," he told YOUTH TODAY.

She has kept the agency on even financial keel through Denver's recent oil bust and economic recovery by developing a broad funding base. The current $431,000 budget is funded principally by local foundations (30 percent), local fundraising events (30 percent), the United Way (8 percent) and the remain-derby corporate grants and individual contributions.

No single revenue category is more than 13 percent. The agency also has an endowment. It bought the club building in 1988 and remodeled it the following year. A key factor in boosting the pro-gram is the Girls Inc. Alliance, a kind of auxiliary dues-paying group that sup-ports fundraising efforts — especially Girls Night Out.

One of some 300 major charity events staged annually in the city, Girls Night Out is a $60 per plate dinner replete with comedians and other entertainment. Now heading into its 11th year, the event attracts an audience of 1,000 women.

The College Bound

Girls Inc. a few years ago installed a system of monthly and yearly awards designed to help motivate girls toward college. Each month, members who have excelled as an artist, athlete, dancer or scholar get posted in the lobby as "Girl of the Month" in those categories.

A "Girl of the Year" is picked annually in the same categories, plus a "Member of the Year," All receive $500 scholarships toward college. An all-around "Girl of the Year" selected from the five gets an additional $2,000 under the program financed by the U.S. West and Donahue Foundations.

The money is put in an interest-bearing account until the girls are ready to go to college or a vocational program," Soto said. "We feel the awards make it more likely kids will consider college. Receiving a scholarship suddenly makes college a possibility. Plus it reinforces your self-esteem."

The posters and financial incentives seem to be working. Four of Soto's girls are now in college and another 32 are in the scholarship pipeline.

She finds that to be job satisfaction, indeed.

Resources

Christine Soto,
Executive Director
Girls Inc. of Metro Denver
3444 West Colfax
Denver, CO 80204
(303) 893-4363

Amy Plotch, Dir. of
Communications
Girls Incorporated
30 East 33rd St.
New York, NY 10016
(212)689-3700

Sidebar:

Denver’s Girls Inc. Takes Fun Seriously… in Steering Kids Toward High Tech Careers: Tale of the Clubs

Howard, Bill. "Denver’s Girls Inc. Takes Fun Seriously… in Steering Kids Toward High Tech Careers." Youth Today, Jan/Feb 1997, p. 42 - 43.

©2000 Youth Today. Reprinted with permission from Youth Today. All rights reserved.