College students Alana Lucas and Laura Garzo met as Waukegan Park District campers while still in elementary school, became friends and spent this summer working together as park district counselors before heading back to school.
As they were growing up in Waukegan, Garzo and Lucas also participated in the park district’s Before and After School Experience (BASE), which helps youngsters get ready for school, do their homework and more while their parents are working.
Along with receiving homework help and getting to know each other, youngsters begin to form bonds through the program.
“We’re able to be good role models to the campers and show that they can also connect to the community and grow up to be an outstanding representation for Waukegan,” Lucas and Garzo said in an email.
The park district is currently taking applications for its Before and After School Experience program for the coming school year starting Aug. 14 for Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 students.
Julia Sanchez, a park district recreation specialist who oversees the program, which offers day care for working families, said parents can bring their children as early as 7 a.m. on school days and retrieve them as late as 6 p.m. at the Belvidere Recreation Center. The program is for kindergartners through fifth-graders.
A regular stop for District 60 school buses, Sanchez said the children can get to school from the recreation center and return there for after school activities like homework or games before a parent arrives to take them home.
With students enrolled in the program from 11 of District 60’s 15 elementary schools, Sanchez said the children begin making friends with others who may not go to their school but will be a familiar face later in middle or high school. It starts to build community, Sanchez said.
“They start making new friends and become part of building community,” Sanchez said.
“Some people start off in BASE, come back as campers, then counselors and form lasting friendships,” she added, referring to people like Lucas and Garzo.
Meeting when they were around 6 or 7 years old, Garzo and Lucas said in an email they returned this summer as counselors, were assigned to the same camp and their friendship grew deeper than before. Garzo will be a junior at the University of Miami in Florida and Lucas is a sophomore at Alabama State University.
“We bonded over the memories we had as kids and the new ones we were making while working as camp counselors,” they said in the email. “Now we are friends inside and outside of work. We get to experience some of the same things that we did as kids and it is really cool.”
Though students can arrive as early as 7 a.m., Sanchez said they must be there 20 minutes before the bus departs for school. Starting and dismissal times vary at different schools. Morning activities are relaxed, officials said. There may be a craft, playing with toys or chilling before class.
When a student gets off the bus after school, things get more serious. Sanchez said if they have homework, it is the first thing on the agenda before engaging in games, crafts or art projects. If a quiet place is needed, it is provided. So is help.
“We have staff to take them to a quiet room if they need help,” Sanchez said. “We check the homework and help them correct it if that’s needed. It’s one less thing the parents have to worry about.”
Cost of the program can range from $184 to $389 a month depending on time of arrival and whether children participate in the morning, afternoon or both. Sanchez said the park district offers scholarships and third-party payment is accepted from organizations like the YWCA.
Sanchez said parents can contact the YWCA about paying for all or part of the BASE program.
