By Taylor Mickelberry
Eagle Correspondent
Published: April 10, 2008

“I love it when I get to work and the kids run to me and say ‘Katrina, you’re here.’” Boys and Girls of Madison County staff member Katrina Lockwood will hear a lot more of this in the coming months. The facility, which officially opened last month, had a grand opening celebration April 6. That’s when Katrina, who is also a Madison County High School senior, made her comment.

A crowd braved the rain to come out and see the building that the new club is operating out of. It offers middle school children the chance to spend afternoons in a safe and fun environment.

The celebration featured Howie Long as its keynote speaker. Long is best known currently as “Chris Long’s dad” or so he told the Madison crowd. Chris, his son, is entering the NFL draft this fall and has played defensive end for the University of Virginia Cavaliers the last four years and was selected as an All-American following this season.

Long himself has had his fair share of NFL fame — he had eight Pro Bowl selections in his career with the Oakland Raiders and a Super Bowl ring to boot. He also is one of four studio analysts for FOX sports on the FOX NFL Sunday TV show.

But he was in Madison Sunday because he has been a long time advocate of the Boys and Girls Club of America. A former at-risk youth himself, Long was a member of a Boston Boys and Girls Club, which helped him stay off the sometimes dangerous streets of his Charlestown neighborhood.
“The one thing you are looking for when you are an at-risk child is hope,” said Long. “You’re looking for a safe sanctuary. And for me, growing up in the 70s in Boston, that safe sanctuary was the Boys and Girls Club.”

The Boys and Girls club in Madison is aiming to do that and beyond to help middle school students in the county so that they don’t end up in the situation where they could be classified as at-risk.

“[The Boys and Girls Club] will become a resource for all the youth in Madison County where they can learn and grow and develop,” said Central Virginia Boys and Girls Clubs Executive Director Timothy Sinatra. “It develops the whole youth to really be successful in whatever pursuit they choose to go in in life.”

Sinatra also said that he hopes that the age range of the club will eventually expand after starting off slow to be able to offer activities to those in a wider range of grades than what is currently offered.

“Kids vote with their feet,” Sinatra added. “And if they show up, that means they like it and so far, from what we have heard from the kids, they are really excited and like coming back and they like our approach which is challenge by choice.”
Sinatra also mentioned that in the inaugural year, he believes that they will get a solid number of 125 members and have around 50 showing up each day.

“I think it will really become a resource that the community will rally around and become the youth authority,” Sinatra said.

The school system is also supporting the Boys and Girls Club fully. “We partner with the Boys and Girls Club to provide the facility,” said Madison Schools Superintendent Brenda Tanner. “We selected the facility that is currently being used because it is adjacent to the middle and high schools and they wanted to serve middle school students first. And we provide this at no cost to the Boys and Girls Club. We also provide them access to the other facilities here.”

Following the festivities, Long had more to say. “It’s a different time than when I grew up,” he said. “The challenges that children and families face are very different than those of the 1970s. You were able to send your kid out just to play on the street in the 1970s with no threat of anything bad happening for the most part. In today’s world I think it’s a far scarier world that we live in. We have a lot of single parent homes and when school gets out at 3 and work doesn’t get out until 6, it’s a place where kids can go to feel safe and feel nurtured and have the opportunity to grow.”
That feeling is exactly what the board of directors of the Madison club and Service Director Rae Parker hope to instill in every child that walks through the doors on a daily basis. The club currently serves Madison youth in the middle school grades and is located in the “blue building” behind the middle-high school complex. It is open 3:30-7:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.

You can contact the Madison Boys and Girls Club at (540) 948-5521.