This week, if you’re driving in North Rapid City near the Journey Museum, take a minute to check out the beautiful little community garden area just across the road at the Club for Boys.
The garden is a special achievement for several young boys and girls in our community, and was built with a grant in special collaboration with the SDSU Extension Office, the Rapid City Area Schools SOLUTIONS program, and J Scull Construction. For the past six weeks, it has also been the site of ProjectRespect.Org’s Team Adolescents Towards Excellence (TATE) Mentoring Program.
TATE was initiated with the goal of building positive relationships between adolescent boys and teen girls, based on Lakota values incorporated into a curriculum designed by students at Oglala Lakota College in Rapid City. For six sessions throughout the summer, youth participated in projects such as building picnic tables, visiting with special needs animals, planting a rose garden, and even some bowling. Each project focused on a specific Lakota virtue such as compassion, humility and tolerance.
The boys and girls in the program have come a long way in six short weeks. Session one was filled with some frustration; the boys defied their older female mentors and even hurled a few insults at them. One of the mentors wanted to quit. But I asked her to give it one more session. By session two, the boys were calmer and more attentive. They enjoyed a nice meal and participated in a compassion lesson about injured and rescued animals. By session four, the same boys who teased their mentors a few weeks earlier wanted to honor them by planting a rose.
The boys and girls in the TATE Program face tremendous hardships, including homelessness. Some of the youth have been in and out of foster care. Statistics tell us that over half of the boys in our program will drop out of high school, and over one third of the girls will be sexually assaulted. I know that every one of these youth has the ability to beat the odds, but overcoming poverty and all of the ugliness that comes with it isn’t something that these kids can do on their own.
In order to increase the high school graduation rates and decrease violence amongst our youth in Rapid City, we need to become involved. Pilot programs like TATE are a step. But we need programs that grow with the youth as they encounter new and changing pressures to make the wrong choices. We need creativity and the willingness to try new programs. We can never fail by serving our youth, our failure lies in doing nothing. While I don’t know what the future holds for the kids I’ve had the privilege to work with this summer, I know that they felt a sense of value and acceptance in what their were doing. And that’s a great start.
Holly Sortland is Founder and Executive Director of ProjectRespect.Org
The garden is a special achievement for several young boys and girls in our community, and was built with a grant in special collaboration with the SDSU Extension Office, the Rapid City Area Schools SOLUTIONS program, and J Scull Construction. For the past six weeks, it has also been the site of ProjectRespect.Org’s Team Adolescents Towards Excellence (TATE) Mentoring Program.
TATE was initiated with the goal of building positive relationships between adolescent boys and teen girls, based on Lakota values incorporated into a curriculum designed by students at Oglala Lakota College in Rapid City. For six sessions throughout the summer, youth participated in projects such as building picnic tables, visiting with special needs animals, planting a rose garden, and even some bowling. Each project focused on a specific Lakota virtue such as compassion, humility and tolerance.
The boys and girls in the program have come a long way in six short weeks. Session one was filled with some frustration; the boys defied their older female mentors and even hurled a few insults at them. One of the mentors wanted to quit. But I asked her to give it one more session. By session two, the boys were calmer and more attentive. They enjoyed a nice meal and participated in a compassion lesson about injured and rescued animals. By session four, the same boys who teased their mentors a few weeks earlier wanted to honor them by planting a rose.
The boys and girls in the TATE Program face tremendous hardships, including homelessness. Some of the youth have been in and out of foster care. Statistics tell us that over half of the boys in our program will drop out of high school, and over one third of the girls will be sexually assaulted. I know that every one of these youth has the ability to beat the odds, but overcoming poverty and all of the ugliness that comes with it isn’t something that these kids can do on their own.
In order to increase the high school graduation rates and decrease violence amongst our youth in Rapid City, we need to become involved. Pilot programs like TATE are a step. But we need programs that grow with the youth as they encounter new and changing pressures to make the wrong choices. We need creativity and the willingness to try new programs. We can never fail by serving our youth, our failure lies in doing nothing. While I don’t know what the future holds for the kids I’ve had the privilege to work with this summer, I know that they felt a sense of value and acceptance in what their were doing. And that’s a great start.
Holly Sortland is Founder and Executive Director of ProjectRespect.Org
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