What You Need to Know about Kids Club

One day last summer (2020) Laura left the office to go to lunch, and 20 seconds later she texted me and said there is a lady and her kids in the parking lot and you should go talk to them. So I did. I met Naomi Jones and her kids learning to ride their bikes on a wide open parking lot.  I learned she is related to Kathy Kohrt.

Fast forward to last fall when school was getting started and we learned that there would be no school on Wednesdays. I thought if I had school-aged kids, this would be a hardship, and I thought this could be an opportunity to serve the Riverdale community with some tutoring at the church. It would also be a way to meet families with kids. So I asked Laura to send out an email to the church to see if there would be anyone interested in helping tutor kids for an hour on Wednesdays. Many people replied and we had a meeting at church to discuss how such a program might work. I led the meeting, thinking we could tutor kids for an hour and send them home, but Becki Winger said we should have the kids from 7-11am and have a full kids program. I thought to myself but did not say out loud… “that’s too much”. However, the idea caught on and plans were made.  Again, Laura sent out an email for willing workers and many agreed. Wayne and Cathy Lotz, Sandy and Rock Lawrence, Kathy Kohrt, Becki Winger, Teresa Garcia, Roger and Connie Curry, Sarah Denekas, Laura’s family, Criss Evans and Bob Gipson all agreed to help.  Many more helpers were added later!

To start the program and give it a boost I asked Kathy Kohrt if she had a way of contacting Naomi Jones who was the only mom with kids at Riverdale I had met. She gave me her number and I had a delightful conversation with Naomi, who was excited to hear about our new Kids Club program.  She committed to telling many other moms about it. We started Kids Club last fall with 15 kids, thanks to Naomi.