Program provides 'safe place' for kids of Cape's southside

A new program on Cape Girardeau’s southside aims to provide a safe place for children once the final school bell rings.

The program is offered at the Creative Arts Learning and Literacy Center, 402 S. Sprigg St., the same building as the coNEXTion Community Resource Center.

“Just giving them a safe place, a fun place, where they can be kids,” said Soni Lloyd, coNEXTion program manager. “And to give them different alternatives so they don’t find themselves getting into criminal activity or find themselves in the juvenile system or doing drugs and etcetera.”

Lloyd said coNEXTion is founded through Community Counseling Center. The Rotary Club of Cape Girardeau sponsors the after-school program, she said.

The program, for children 5 to 18 years old, is offered during a seven week period, Lloyd said. Art classes are offered 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays as well as a reading program at the same time Thursdays, Lloyd said. The first seven week period will conclude in late April.

Emily Mohler, a Southeast Missouri State University student from St. Louis studying art education, works with Violet Robbins, 6, of Cape Girardeau as Robbins works on an art project during an after-school program Tuesday at the Creative Arts Learning and Literacy Center in Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

Southeast Missouri State University students help with the programs.

Carol Horst, Southeast’s area head of art education and coordinator of Art Reach, oversees the Southeast students who assist with the art.

She said her and the Southeast students’ involvement in the after-school program is part of Art Reach.

“Art Reach is really geared for helping students build relationships through art-making activities,” Horst said.

The program is in a trial basis, Lloyd said, but more plans are in the works.

“We’re looking at trying to do this more every semester,” she said. “And then we’re going to have all kinds of different activities throughout the summer for kids to come to that live on the southside of Cape Girardeau.”

Lloyd said there are “a lot of reasons” for the program’s focus on the southside.

“To destroy a lot of the stigma that’s in place on southside Cape. Give people opportunities. Bring hope, bring light,” she said.

Sharon Braun, director of public relations and special projects at Community Counseling Center, said the program, which is free, gives children “a connection to possibilities, you know, of other things that they don’t get in regular school.”

“These are activities that these kids may not ever have a chance to take, because they’re free,” Braun said.

She said the students are transported via school bus to the program and, once the program is finished, are taken home by Community Counseling Center vans.

The idea for the program originated with the Rotary Club of Cape Girardeau, Lloyd said.

“All of these groups in the community are cooperating, working together, for kids. To provide a safe place, a safe environment,” said Robert Gifford, president of Rotary Club of Cape Girardeau.

He said the proximity to Southeast Missouri State University’s River Campus also has an effect on their “vision” for the future, mentioning the possibility of music, drama and dancing programs.

“So we could really take the arts literally and expand,” Gifford said. “And all of these things in different ways reach different people.”

For more information about the program, contact Lloyd at (573) 803-1210.

jwiegand@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3643