Youth Activity Group

Youth Activity Group Meetings

Restoration recognizes that we are living in a day when financial demands on families are soaring.  Both parents in many of our homes are working to meet the financial demands.  Their travel time plus their hours at work keep them away from home long hours during the day or night.  The children are left to fend for themselves in a lot of those homes, because the income is not sufficient to pay for the extra childcare needed.  There was a day when families had other adult members, i.e. grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., living in the same house and they were available to be with the children during parents’ absent hours.  The single-parent situation has now added to the “home alone” dilemma.

Solutions to the “home alone” dilemma became a concern of Restoration.  Children, and especially pre-teens, and teenagers become bored quickly and start finding something to do with their time.  Summer programs are expensive and prohibitive for many families – more so if they have more than one child for which to pay to attend.  One of Restoration’s solutions to the summer “home alone” dilemma was to offer “free” morning day camps.  Twelve (12) to sixteen (16) youth could attend each day camp and that would occupy three weeks of half days for them.

Two summer day camps came into being - one three-week camp in June and one three-week camp in July each summer.  Games, snacks and character-building lessons and videos were on the curriculum.  Special guests each Wednesday and a Fun Day each Friday was on the agenda.

Most of the participants come from Wilson County. The Wilson County School District changed to a year-round school calendar making it difficult to have 3-week day camps. Each year a determination is made as to what the summer activities will be.

Another solution surfaced to help prevent our youth from getting into trouble and that was to have a Youth Gathering one night each month (during school term) from 7:00 to 8:30 PM.  Anyone who is 11 through 19 years of age may come to the Youth Gatherings.  Games, pledges, guests, snacks and door prizes fill the time.  Youth attendance is voluntary.  We have limited space therefore we have limited attendance.

The after-school tutoring program also remedies some of the boredom as well as boosts self-esteem.  It is believed that those who spend their time studying and learning during their spare time will be less likely to get into trouble.

Preventive Maintenance is of utmost importance and Restoration is proud to be able to offer possible solutions to some of our families’ needs.  Our children and youth are our citizens of tomorrow and we need quality citizens!