Torch Club

Torch Club is an amazing opportunity to teach youth about community service, leadership, responsibility, and character.  It’s specifically for youth between the ages of 11 and 13, and it also just happens to be a program that I run at El Pomar (Mr. Myles and Mrs. Heather run it at Tutt).  We’ve had a few Torch Club meetings already this year, and thus far, we’re having a lot of fun!

Recently, the Torch Club from both El Pomar and Tutt had the opportunity to assist some of our amazing volunteers and club staff in a club clean up.  While volunteers and club staff cleaned out a few of our HUGE storage closets, the two Torch Clubs came together to pick up trash around our clubs, as well as give our Art and Power Hour rooms a good scrubbin'!

This was an opportunity for our middle schoolers to prove they've got what it takes to make a difference in their surroundings, and boy did they do an outstanding job!  Our lawn and fence looked spotless :).

We celebrated afterwards with a BBQ and fun games outside.

Cheers to Torch Club, our amazing volunteers, and club staff for making this day a complete success!

SMART Girls

SMART Girls is one of our most popular programs.  Between Tutt and El Pomar we have about 40 young ladies involved, from ages 8 and up.  SMART Girls makes sure the girls of this generation are making the right decisions.  It’s a wonderful way for girls to: form a bond with one another; to talk about what’s going on in their home lives and at school; to discuss important issues like body image and emotions, friendships and relationships; and last but not least, it works on developing self confidence.

Ms. Sherrell has taken charge of Smart Girls in an amazing way.  The girls are always excited to sign up for the new season and see what she has in store.  This season’s program opened with a tea party. 

Cups were decorated for each girl, yummy tea was provided, as well as cookies and cucumber sandwiches. 

She also had the girls pass around a special package that was wrapped in about 20 layers of tissue paper. 

In the middle of the package was a prize, but in order to find out what it was, each girl had to unwrap a layer of tissue paper from the package and pass it on to the next girl.  The girl who unwrapped the last layer received the prize!  There was a lot of anticipation between the girls on who would be the last to unwrap the package.  Inside was a HUGE Crunch Bar.  Yumaroo!

Recently, Ms. Sherrell had the girls work on dream boards.  These boards help them visualize their dreams in a very literal way.  Look how amazing they turned out:

We plan to hang these up in a section of our club, and we’ll be sure to inform you when they are up (with plenty of pictures to prove it)!

St. Patty's Day Parade

We had a fabulous time at the St. Patty's Day Parade through down town Tejon last weekend. This years amazing float was designed by our good friend Cara.  With the help of staff members, club volunteers and club members, the float design was able to come to life!  Take a look for yourself:

Can you say "glitter"?  It was definitely easy to spot this beauty from a distance as it hovered down Tejon.  We had about 80 kids show up to support us and be part of our float.  Some walked with banners and some took a ride on the float itself! 

Our Teen Safe Driving Program was spotlighted as well.  Many of the teens manned a booth in Acacia Park, from 9am - 2pm.  The Teen Safe Driving Program is sponsored by Allstate, which encourages teens to learn about the dangers of distracted driving, with a particular emphasis on getting hundreds of teens and community members not to text and drive. 

At our St. Patty's Day booth, Allstate provided us with a huge banner.  Our goal was to get people to pledge not to text and drive by putting a blue thumb print on this banner.  By the end of the day, we received 996 pledges -- that's a lot of thumbs!

Even this guy signed:

Thank you!

We also passed out thumb rings that read "txting klls" as well as candy with spiffy slogans on them.  For instance, a 100 Grand candy bar read, "Your life is worth more than 100 Grand! Don't text and drive!"

Our teen members also emphasized a campaign dreamt up by themselves, "LID" or "Later I'm Driving".   They asked hundreds of parade-goers to text "LID" before stepping into their cars so that family and friends know not to text them while they are driving. To top it off, each teen member wore a bright orange shirt which starred the "LID" logo.

It was an exciting day for all of us and we are so happy it ended up a success!  Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on the float and at our booth, as well as those who pledged not to text and drive!

Picture of the day: