The Relationships That Form Us!

  

Photo Credit: Anne Thor   

I’m the education director at the boys and girls club Southside. My main role is to make sure that the kids are doing their schoolwork. On top of that, I do different activities with them to make sure that they are getting other educational sources besides just schoolwork. Skills such as computer safety, educating them on not talking to strangers, and one of our biggest things includes trying to push them towards goals of graduating.

   Growing up

I was born in Thailand. My mom was a single parent. She had me when she was 12, and she didn't speak any English. I never met my dad, and I turned out just fine! I would say money was an issue growing up, because my mom worked the second shift which meant I had to take care of my siblings growing up. Which meant staying after school was not an option for me. However, a really important person in my life at the time pushed me to stay after school and get involved. She was black, and so my mom was like NO!, you're not staying after school with her. But she was really good about communicating with my mom and telling her what we were doing. My mom knew she was mentoring me, and taking me to see colleges. So after a while my mom started loosening up and started trusting her. Without her I feel like I would be very sheltered and I would not have experienced half the things I did.

                                                       Motivation

Nina White, Ms. Anne mentor.

Photo credit: Anne Thor

Nina White, she was my mentor growing up. Meeting her was really random, I just went to the library one day and she just said,  "Hey this is a Upward Bound program." She asked me if I wanted to sign up and she said they pay you 25 cents every time you stay after school so I was like, okay! I stuck close to her growing up, because I don't like to socialize much. I learned at a very young age the more friends you have the more drama you have, and I was not in a place to have all that boy girl and girl girl drama. Staying close to Nina really helped. Knowing that I had her growing up really motivated me to do the same for someone else. Hopefully someday, maybe I can pass that on. So that the kids I work with do something good, so that they can give back to their community and to themselves.

                                                                Passion

I was not originally from the Southside Boys and Girls Club. Before I started working with the kids I work with now, I worked at the Eastside Boys and Girls Club as a secretary. I started at the front desk and then I started working with the 5 through 8 year olds. So then when a position opened up here, I moved to the Southside Boys and Girls Club. But I did a lot of different things before I was able to find something that I really liked. I worked at a manufacturing place for a while. Then I did some house cleaning, and I also worked at the front desk for hotels. Yet, growing up I kind of always knew what I wanted to do. Which originally was to work at a school, but I didn’t want to teach. I was planning to be a staff member but this is a good fit. Working at the Boys and Girls Club is the closest I could get to that. I’m truly happy with where I am. What really motivated me to stop working at the front desk was knowing that I could make a difference in these kids lives, because I could relate to them. I could do what my mentors did for me. I could open up a whole new world for them. I felt like I hadn’t accomplished that, but hopefully in the future I can and they will realize that, "Oh I had someone there for me this whole time."

                                                    Building Relationships

Anne(left) and younger sister(right)

Photo credit: Anne Thor

The relationships I form with the kids is what makes my job at the Boys and Girls Club really stand out. The relationships we form, they're different. They're not like the relationships you have with your parents or with your brother and sisters. If the kids are willing you can form a relationship with them where they are more then likely to open up about more personal things and that's what makes it worth it. That and a lot of patience, because when you first meet a kid they're not going to open right away. There going to be like "oh this is happening to me." They will put up a wall and you have to break it down each and every day.

                                                        The Goal

I love my job. I feel like it’s worth it at the end. Not all of the kids parents can be there for them on a daily basis, so that's my role in their life. I have a lot of kids who say  “my mom don’t check my backpack, why should you?” I look at them and say “that's exactly why! Your mom don’t have time she’s working. She gave me the job to check your backpack, I have written permission from her.” Their parents can’t be there for them but they know that I am. I will never stop trying to help them. These kids go through a lot more than we know. And those experiences make them who are they are. Like, how could a 6th grader not trust you, and why are they so angry all the time? Why can’t a 13 year old not read the book a cat and the hat? We had a 6 year old girl come to the club by herself a couple of years ago. She was in foster care and her foster mom said she didn’t know how to read and she hated reading. The kids are required to read when they first come here to the boys and girls club. For a long time she put up a front and would pick up the books without complaining, but I slowly worked with her on her sight words. By the end of the second year at the club she could read the first book she picked up at the boys and girls club. The lightbulb went on in her head and she said to me,  “Ms. Annie I can read now, I can read this book." My goal is to make sure that each kid knows that they are safe with me and that the boys and girls club is a safe place for them to be Even though it’s not directly in my job title, building that relationship with them so they know that someone is there is the most important thing I can do for them