Diana Adamson

A Woman Devoted to The Future of Our Youth

Determining the Path

When I was in school I was in landscape architecture(1) at Iowa State. My sorority sister one night was drawing sewer systems and I said, “What are you doing?” and she said “I’m drawin’ a sewer system.” And I said, “This is so cool.” I go “What, what for?” I thought she was going to be an architect she goes, “No, I’m a landscape architect.”So I went and changed from bein’ a design student to a landscape architecture student. (laughs) I graduated in 1982 . Then I moved up from Iowa to Minnesota and at the time, the economy was really bad and I was thinking of going back to school to become a teacher because I’d originally started thinking I was going to do art. I ended up doing a lot of environmental education and one day I was starting to get restless. I had been there about 9 years and one day I decided today was the day I was going to quit. No real reason I just knew that if I didn’t quit that day, I was going to roll over and it would be 18 years and that’s not what I had planned on doing. One day I saw this ad in the paper for a job at the Boys and Girls Club. I took the little piece of paper and I hung it up on my refrigerator and about two weeks later I said “Oh, I should call on that.” So I called and the guy that hired me from the club said, “I’m interviewing today and tomorrow. Get me your resume.” I was like oh my gosh do I really get to build my resume?? (laughs) And so I thought well okay, if I get it done I get it done, and if I don’t then I don’t. Well I think I went to Kinko's and faxed him. It wasn’t as easy as it is with technology now. He interviewed me and then he hired me as the environmental ed director at the Boys and Girls Club. So that’s how I ended up at the club. (laughs)

Going Through the Ranks

Well now I’m a director and I had no plans to ever be a director, never wanted to be a director. They kinda conned me into it. So I’ve been with the Boys and Girls Club for 18 years and at first I was an environmental ed director and then unfortunately through funding, as any non profit, we lost our funding for environmental ed. Then I worked as a program director over at east side Boys and Girls Club where I got very comfortable and then I ended working up at the summer camp which I really enjoyed, but after five years I was ready to move on And so, by the beginning of August after I decided to quit the camp, they were starting, the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of the Twin Cities had just acquired the building where Mt. Airy(2) is. And it was just a mess, so they hired camp staff and all the Boy’s and Girl’s staff to come in and clean up the building and do painting. Then the CEO came to me and she said,”Would you consider bein’ the director?” And I said, “I’ve never wanted to be a director, I don’t want to be a director.” And she’s said, “Well I don’t really have anybody else, but I’d like you to do this.” And so, I really thought about it and I thought what do I got to lose. And so, that’s how I became the director at the club where I’m at. So now, I’ve been, it’s been, it’ll be 5 years, well, going on 6 years almost. So, I’m starting my 6th year there. It was good cause, you know, I came to the Boy’s and Girl’s Club never thinking it was gonna be a career and now I’ve been here 18 years. I’ve been able to make my positions and move around and I had all sorts of different experiences. The one thing that I’ve seen is, I’ve worked in my club, I’ve worked citywide for our organization, I’ve worked statewide cause there’s 65 Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs in the state of Minnesota, and I’ve also done stuff regionally for the midwest and nationally. 

Boys and Girls Club Mt. Airy, Saint Paul, MN
Photo Credit: Yosan Tsegai

Source of Motivation

It’s really the kids. In the Boys and Girls Club, not really knowing what I was getting into and my very first day I just remember the story of when I was hired and they said, “go out and meet the kids and find out who they are.” So there is a bunch of little kids and they’re playing over in the corner and these little girls are fighting and I said, “What's wrong?” And she goes, “They want me to be the man at the store that is watching to make sure you don't steal anything.” And I just was so dumbfounded  by that  I said, “What?” How can kids 6 years old or so put into their play the man from the store, that watches you see if you steal anything. So that just told me so much about what I don't see or know about being called kinda that white privilege. That was like my first aha moment, thinking wow people have to worry about this stuff.  I have one guy that I talk to and he calls me his mentor. He is now 28 years old and he calls me to just talk things over. I’ve known him since he was like a 10, 11 year old little boy. He has dealt with a lot of problems, when he was young I would take him home from the club, every night was somewhere different. He told me his mom was an alcoholic and it took a long time for me to figure all that out because he was pretty low-key about it. But then we do our youth of the year competition each year and he wrote his youth of the year paper and he talked about the time that one of his family members held a gun to his head and how he hated his mom for being an alcoholic and having to fear for his safety. So right now he is down in Texas with some family, because he didn't have the ability to be able to say stay away from family always sucking him into the negative stuff. So it's all those kinds of stories or different pieces I have and really it's almost like family and friendships that I found over these 18 years that really mean a lot to me. And in so much that my kids will say, “ Mom are you talking about us,” when I say the kids, “Or are you talking about the club kids,” (laugh) and I said, “Oh the club kids.”

Words of Wisdom

I think it's a mutual peace because I don't think that you ever know that you're impacting the kids life, you have no idea. I kinda tell the same way, same idea with landscape architecture. In Landscape architecture you make a master plan of a park and you do designs a lot of times you plan those designs and you will never see how that design matures because it takes so many years for it to be even seen may be affected but you're not really going to know how it would be impacted or how many people it has impacted. The same way with club kids, you are going to see them, some of them will come and go out of your life pretty fast, some of them would be there for long periods of time and some will comeback. And so it’s in a lot of times you have no idea that little thing that you did made such an impact on somebody.

Accomplishments

I mean I have a lot of them. I got the honor of being the Midwest Youth Professional of the year, which might not sound a really big deal but in our Midwest region we have thirteen states and just to give you an aspect, we have 65 clubs just in the states of Minnesota and so when Boys and Girls club of America named me as the one professional out of thirteen states, that was a huge huge honor. I’ve done a lot. I helped with the race exhibit at the science museum and it traveled all around the United States and its been in the Smithsonian(3) and because of the project that I did in the Boys and Girls club, I got to sit in on a committee of community members and help the science museum. Because the science museum in Minnesota put that exhibit together and it took us about two years of meeting monthly, coming together, and looking at all different aspects. And then I’m and they came and while we were designing the whole piece, they said, “Hey, the boys and girls club are diverse organization with people and everybody, so can you come and do a photo-shoot?” So I'm actually in the race exhibit too.

Advice On Finding Your Calling

I just turned 57, I have been really kind of questioning how much longer can I do this or do I want to do this, you know, but I can’t also imagine leaving. I’m still here because of the kids. So, at least as a director I get to be a little bit with kids. I just I wish it wasn’t so much of the negative, you know. The upset parents, the “your kid can’t come” because whatever, and calling people and always being that person, that gets old. (laughs) It is what it is, I say you still have the best job, and it is, so appreciate it. When I go into talk at your groups I always tell them, “This is a great training ground, you are either going to love it or you are going to hate it” and so, and that's not a bad thing if you hate it that's okay, especially just starting out, good for you to recognize it, or at least I hope you recognize it if you don’t like it, because then find something else that you will like. Because If you don’t have that passion and that desire to walk in you are going to be that crabby person that we all hated, and I bet every person knows of the crabby teacher that they hated being with for a whole year in school. So that's what I tell em’ I say, “Come, find out, see what were at and if you have flexibility, you have the desire to not know what you're gonna get into everyday, you love working with kids and really, you know want to try that, it's a great training ground for youth development.

Diana Adamson
Photo credit: Yosan Tsegai

Footnotes:
1. Landscape Architecture is the design of outdoor public areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. 
2. Mt. Airy is a public housing agency in Saint Paul, Minnesota
3. Smithsonian is an Institution, established in 1846 "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge ,"is a group of museums and rerseacrh centers administered by the Government of the United States