WEED AND SEED GRANTS TO ASSIST YOUTH PROGRAMS

CHARLESTON -- Awards of more than $35,000 in grants were made to programs that help keep children and youths away from drugs and gangs Thursday by Southeast Missouri Weed and Seed Inc.

The board met Thursday afternoon at the Charleston City Hall to discuss grant awards and to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of former board president Dr. Paul Keys.

The grants help Weed and Seed programs in Charleston, Sikeston, Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau and Caruthersville fund activities like summer youth work programs, tutoring sessions and trips for children in those communities.

Local steering committees approved the grant requests and suggested a funding amount to the regional board. The grants must be approved by the regional board before the money can be allocated to the programs.

Weed and Seed is a program operated by the U.S. Justice Department that aims to "weed" out drugs and crime in a targeted area and "seed" that area with other resources and community programs.

The Southeast Missouri program is the only regional program in the nation. All other Weed and Seed initiatives are concentrated in a single city.

So when people ask what communities are doing to stop violence and school shootings, Weed and Seed programs have the answers, said regional board president Rick Hetzel, police chief at Cape Girardeau.

"It's the programs that we approved today that make the difference, he said. "This is what we are doing."

Many of the program grants were submitted by Charleston. They included a youth drill team that operates like an Army camp, a safe haven summer camp at the Susanna Wesley Learning Center, an award to a traveling youth choir and a summer job program that helps clean up the target neighborhood.

A grant submitted by Youth Educational Adventures (YEA) will benefit children in Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, Charleston and Poplar Bluff. YEA was awarded $16,000 contingent upon approval by the Cape Girardeau steering committee.

The grant will help fund a weeklong trip for 30 to 40 children to Washington, D.C. The children will be from the Weed and Seed target areas in each city.

"We are rewarding them for beating the odds," said Carrie Cline, a YEA volunteer. "They are really fighting the pressures from the street."

Fred Pennington, who has worked with the program since 1991, said it can really change a child's life. Pennington told the board about his own personal experience as a child growing up in a single-parent home in St. Louis.

A neighbor family paid for his trip to a summer camp and it changed his life, he said.

"It showed me that there was something out there that was different than what I normally saw," he said. "I could see a big world out there."

And the same happens to the children who attend the YEA summer program, said Lisa Lane, another volunteer.

"Some of these kids have never even gotten 20 blocks from their home," she said.

Grants also were awarded to the Reading Room in Sikeston and to Operation Off-Streets in Poplar Bluff.

The board also approved a grant application from Missouri Department of Health for a summer lunch program. The $36,000 grant had already been approved and submitted by the Cape Girardeau steering committee. The program will operate out of the safe haven sites.