Event tonight highlights importance of after-school programs to students' success

YOUNGSTOWN

For many kids, going to school seems like a chore.

Many Youngstown City schools students, however, look forward to staying at school even after the final bell has rung.

Or so it appeared during a parade Thursday afternoon in which hundreds of students marched along Wood Street, enthusiastically shouting and waving banners the whole way, to promote the after-school programs they attend.

The parade was part of Lights on Afterschool, an event sponsored by the Youngstown Afterschool Alliance as part of a national campaign in which more than 7,500 sites will participate this month.

The parade started in front of the Youngstown Board of Education office on Wood Street and ended at Choffin Career and Technical Center, where students heard from schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn, Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel and Dorothy Collins of Eastern Gateway Community College.

“We have these after-school programs for you,” Hathorn told students. “We’re going to take care of you, and do anything we can to make you successful.”

Students also got to participate in math and reading activities, and had healthy foods to snack on. Partners such as OH WOW! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology, and the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County had tables at the event.

Learning paired with fun-filled activities is what the after-school programs — in which about 300 students participate — are all about, according to April Alexander, project director for the programs at Williamson Elementary, Rayen Early College and Chaney.

“Afterschool provides academic enrichment and youth development in very key ways for kids,” she said, saying that while students get help on homework, they also do things like STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) activities, robotics demonstrations and poetry readings.

It also helps kids who are behind in school, Alexander said.

Read more about the programs in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.