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Area youths tackle north Nampa service project
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Sharon Strauss
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Melinda Quick, 16, of Boise helps shovel out a walkway to beautify the grounds at the OG’s BAD campus Friday afternoon. About 70 area high school students participated in the alternative spring break project that will create a landscaped walkway, volleyball and basketball courts, build and place benches and hang shutters on the building. Mike Vogt / IPT |
sstrauss@idahopress.com
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
NAMPA — In the heart of north Nampa is the Original Gangster’s Basic Academy of Development — a refuge for local young people who are looking for an escape hatch from a lifetime of crime, drugs or failure in school.
Just down the road is the house where Fernando Flores’ great-grandparents used to live. “It’s changed a lot,” said 16-year-old Flores, a sophomore at Columbia High School, of the neighborhood. “There’s graffiti on everyone’s fences. It’s gotten really bad. Every time I drive by there now, it’s just all trashed. All around the neighborhood you see graffiti on signs, houses.”
Flores is one of about 70 local students dedicating part of their spring break to beautify the neighborhood by giving the school grounds a facelift. By the end of the two-day project the student volunteers will have landscaped a walkway through the campus, created volleyball and basketball courts, built and placed benches and hung shutters on the building.
The work will develop a vacant lot that serves as part of the OG’sBAD campus at 304 16th Ave. N. into a space that beautifies the neighborhood and fosters a sense of community. The work also marks the beginning of where OG’sBAD’s organizers hope to take the program in years to come.
“It’s a lot more than planting some trees and moving some dirt around,” said Carl Arriola, CEO of Tate’s Rent, one of the project’s sponsors. “It’s about building a community.”
The youth service project is the first of its kind in the nation, according to United Way of Treasure Valley officials, which modeled the experience after college alternative spring break opportunities throughout the country. It is the organization’s first staging of an alternative spring break project, and the only one of its kind to utilize high school students with a 100 percent local approach, said President and CEO Sally Zive.
| The project was supported by the local business community. Sponsors include Tates Rent, Greenhurst Nursery, Lowe’s, Wells Fargo Bank, Costco, Wal-Mart, North by Northwest Productions, Treasure Valley YMCA, Franklin Building Supply, the Millick family and United Way of Treasure Valley. |
The work was planned, designed and organized by a steering committee of student and adult volunteers, and is also a way for high school students on both end of the county line to get to know each other through their work.
The idea originated with United Way’s volunteer center director Neva Geisler. The steering committee made presentations to Canyon County high schools and gained the support of several local students.
“I grew up in this area,” said 17-year-old Columbia High senior Marcelino Gonzalez, who volunteered his weekend to participate in the project. He hopes the work will help lessen gang involvement and open the doors to different opportunities troubled kids might not see. “For instance, college and beyond. Not just the gang life. I hope this will show them there is more out there,” Gonzalez said.
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