Helping Minnesota kids make 'SMART Moves'

Boys and Girls Clubs of the Leech Lake Area encourages positive life choices

Sometimes, family isn’t found at home. Sometimes, family doesn’t mean brothers or sisters or parents or grandparents. Sometimes, family is the feeling you get in the place where you’re supported and safe.

That’s how 17-year-old Keith Howard describes it. In the 14 years since he was removed from his parents’ home on the Leech Lake Reservation in central Minnesota, Howard has lived in 10 foster homes. A sense of family has been hard to come by – but Howard has found it at his local Boys and Girls Club.

“What does the Club mean to me?” Howard wrote in his application essay for the Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year award. “There is only one word I can confidently say: family.”

Howard is one of 970 current club members who have found guidance, support and fun in the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Leech Lake Area, an umbrella grouping of three clubs in the small Minnesota communities of Cass Lake, Deer River, and Walker.

This year, these clubs will be better able to serve their members with the help of a $5,000 community investment grant from Enbridge – directed specifically toward a program that helps youth make positive life choices.

The program, called SMART (Skills Mastery and Resistance Training) Moves, is a prevention and education course for youth aged six to 18. The program seeks to help youth resist alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and premature sexual activity. It’s a lofty mandate, but club organizers say it’s effective because of an underlying focus on positive relationships.

“We want to ensure the kids are comfortable within themselves, and have someone to go to when they need it,” says Lindsey Schiller, Director of Operations for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Leech Lake Area. Schiller adds that the challenges facing kids in the Leech Lake region are compounded by high rates of poverty, with around 25 per cent of families living below the poverty line.

Becky Haase, a Minnesota-based Stakeholder Relations Specialist with Enbridge, says the Boys and Girls Clubs’ track record for helping kids make good choices in tough circumstances was a key element in the decision to award the grant.

“A good way to stop the cycle of poverty is to invest in youth programs like those offered at the Boys and Girls Clubs,” says Haase. “It’s investing in their futures.”

For Keith Howard, who beat the odds for kids shuffled through the foster care system, this investment has paid dividends. Today, Howard is a strong student and a member of the high school basketball team. He’s also viewed as a youth leader in the local Ojibwe community.

“These are our future leaders, so we have to educate them and get them on the right track,” says Schiller. “The grant from Enbridge is helping us make a difference in the lives of the kids who come to our club.”