Word: programing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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With the students finally obtaining a list of the children living in the Homes from the Resources Center, the volunteers began selecting children to participate in the program. But an unexpected source--division within the community itself--hampered their recruiting efforts...
...Codman Park, fought like mismatched neighbors. "We wanted a diverse group and we thought we could get it just by knocking on doors," Parrette said, adding "We were wrong. We'd knock on doors at Codman Park and the people would say "Sure, our kid can be in the program--as long as you don't let anyone in from over there.'" But persistence paid off for the volunteers, who chose 45 children and officially launched the program...
...daily administrative problems were the least of the counselors' worries. Even when the program itself ran smoothly, it was never an easy summer. The community division which the counselors discovered on Day One never abated. Codman park kids beat up Washington kids and vice versa; at least ten of the original 45 children dropped out midway through the program because of peer pressure...
...piece de resistance came on the last day of the program. Some of the children, upset because the counselors had slapped them while trying to break up fights, complained to their older brothers. When those brothers--members of the Wild Bunch--showed up and threatened to defend their siblings by beating up the student "intruders," the volunteers blanched. But after some pushing and showing, things calmed down...
...children claimed not to want to go away, but once 'away' usually did not want to go home," the counselors' report on the program states. The success of traveling outside Roxbury suggests that the children do not know about the world beyond their own, the counselors concluded--"Someone has to simply force them to broader horizons...