WV Gov grants $500K to Bob Burdette’s afterschool program

CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – An afterschool pilot program focused on helping at-risk children on Charleston’s West Side is getting a huge boost from Governor Jim Justice’s Contingency Fund.

On Wednesday, Gov. Justice delivered a $500,000 check to the Bob Burdette Center so they can expand their afterschool program into a two-year pilot initiative that will support kids through math and reading tutoring and provide a safe environment for them to flourish.

The two-year-long pilot initiative will continue to help both K-5th grade Mary C. Snow Elementary and Edgewood Elementary students who may otherwise not have access to direct tutoring and support. Additionally, the focus of the new funding is to now include parents in the picture of the afterschool program.

“We’ve been on the West Side, which is a very economically disadvantaged side of Charleston for 30 years,” Bob Burdette Center Executive Director Dianna Graves said.

Their afterschool program serves between 160 and 180 kids each year. Graves said this program is unlike many other afterschool programs.

“A lot of our children come from homes where there’s a lot of struggle going on, just a lot of struggle, so they have a lot of trauma to deal with and don’t always develop empathy. When you’re faced with emotional abuse and physical abuse, sometimes your response to that is to develop a shell and you don’t develop empathy for other people, and that’s how the cycle continues,” Graves said. “So, part of our mission here is to say ‘this is what empathy is. This person could be your friend. The choices that you are making, this is what’s going to happen.’”

Graves said many of the families they serve are struggling financially, and without this program, students would go unsupervised after school because parents are working.

“We feed the children a hot meal as soon as they arrive. If you’re not familiar with the demographic here, sometimes the only time these children get to eat is through a program like this, through the school and through us,” Graves said.

She continued, “If you have ever experienced hunger in your life, the hardest thing to do is to try to ignore that and process a bunch of abstract information.”

Graves said the program is intended to not only give children chances to work one-on-one with Kanawha County certified teachers but also ensure parents that there are opportunities for them to also succeed.

Graves said, “Having an after-school program like this, which is totally free to them, and they know their kid is in a safe place and supervised and being taught and fed. That just frees families to go out and try to lift themselves out of poverty, which is the goal.”

Graves said with the half-a-million-dollar support from the Governor’s Office, they plan to hold workshops for parents and community nights, bringing them into the possibility of having a better life for themselves and their children.

“The exciting thing to me for the two-year pilot program that the governor is funding is we get to continue the ‘Communities in Schools’ philosophy into an afterschool program. So, communities in schools, one of the things I love most about that, is it kind of wraps around the whole family, and we are going to continue that philosophy. Some of the new things we’ll get to start doing, we’re having family engagement nights. Home meals that we cook here in the center and the whole extended family gets to come in, they get to see all the things their kids have been doing, they get fed a nutritious meal, but it’s more than that. It’s self-sufficiency,” Graves said.

These workshops will involve providing families with resources to improve their children’s lives altogether. They said they plan to distribute backpacks with hygiene products, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and more when families need it. They also said they will educate families on affordable nutrition options in the region if they are struggling.

“Some of these parents are working two and three jobs, like really struggling. You can imagine if you’re a parent, if you’re working that much trying to provide for your family, how much life education are you able to pass on to your child? Some of our children struggle with brushing your teeth, taking a bath, why are clean clothes important, why is hygiene important. All of these kinds of things that impact them as they go forward. So, we have family engagement nights. It’s a healthy curriculum. It’s not just ‘hey, you got to do this.’ We make it possible.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOWK 13 News.