Tag: Las Vegas

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From Nightlife to Daycare

Moving to Vegas in 2001, I never thought that this would be a place that I would be thinking about childcare and the importance of finding a right babysitter, choosing the perfect fit of a daycare and of course, where does my child go to school but here I am, in a city with some really close friends who have children in all stages. 

As I got thinking about childcare and the action needed to find something that suits the parent’s schedule, the characteristics of the children and has the charisma to make both parents and children feel comfortable, I began to think about the obstacles that Las Vegas faces with childcare. 

Las Vegas is a city that can have a traffic jam at five in the morning.  The biggest industry here is customer service. Whether it is gambling, night life, going to a show, almost everyone here works in the industry and their hours are the craziest out of any other profession.  With that said, what do their children do after school?  This got me really thinking about afterschool programs and what Las Vegas is doing to better create programs for those children who would prosper from such programs. 

One change that the city did came in 2010 when the revised their Safekey program to get more involved in afterschool programs.  Here is the description from the City of Las Vegas homepage.

            *Safekey is a before and/or after school recreational enrichment program designed for children, age 5-11 attending kindergarten through fifth grades at the Safekey elementary school sites. The program follows the Clark County School District (CCSD) calendar and operates only on days that school is in session. Daily and weekly scheduled activities include nutrition and physical fitness, arts and crafts, music and drama, games, special events, homework assistance, and a nutritional afternoon snack. For an additional fee, special program days may be offered at some Safekey sites on CCSD staff development days or during parent/teacher conference days when school is on a half-day schedule. If your child attends a magnet school and you wish your child to attend his/her neighborhood school you must contact the program coordinator for assistance.

             The city of Las Vegas Safekey program is proud to partner with the Southern Nevada Health District to include the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) Kids Club as a component of its services. The CATCH program is designed to promote behaviors that assist in developing and maintaining good health in school-age children. This component of Safekey helps support the Mayor’s Healthy Lifestyle Initiative, which encourages Las Vegas residents to Get Smart, Get Up and Get Out to improve diet, nutrition and physical fitness. Participant s will be involved, on a daily basis, in a variety of enjoyable physical activities, crafts, or educational topics such as nutrition, personal safety and positive choices, all with an emphasis on promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors. Children will be given many opportunities to participate and practice their skills. 

I also researched some of the statistics to see how when in 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act reauthorized the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) Initiative.  This moved the administration of grants from the U.S. Department of Education to the State Education Agencies.

This chart gives an idea of how the funds have grown for after school programs.  More information can be found at afterschoolalliance.com.

 

Funding History, 21st CCLC
Fiscal Year Amount Appropriated Amount Authorized in No Child Left Behind Act
1998 $40 million n/a
1999 $200 million n/a
2000 $453 million n/a
2001 $846 million $1 billion
2002 $1 billion $1.25 billion
2003 $993.5 million $1.5 billion
2004 $991 million $1.75 billion
2005 $991 million $2 billion
2006 $981 million $2.25 billion
2007 $981 million $2.5 billion
2008 $1.08 billion $2.5 billion
2009 $1.13 billion $2.5 billion
2010 $1.16 billion $2.5 billion
2011 $1.154 billion $2.5 billion
2012 $1.152 billion $2.5 billion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I understand that many of you don’t want to think about childcare, or the value in an afterschool program, but as my friend LaVonne says from her experience working for the afterschool program in Adams-Friendship, WI, “it makes a world of a difference for any child because it isn’t school, but the education is just as great, if not more for a child who has nowhere else to go.”

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Revisiting the Last Year: Human Feng Shui

This post was back in March after I had been in Las Vegas for a week:

While I was in Las Vegas, I got a chance to talk with Justin from the Ethiopian Community Development Council, INC(ECDC),  about the Human Feng Shui Project.  What this is set out to do is to successfully place refugees into American Society here in Las Vegas.  We talked a lot about funding, help from both the state and local government which is practically non-existent and also contributions from the casinos because essentially, these refugees are going to work in them and I feel that the casinos have a social obligation to help out their community.

I also asked if there were being any agreements made about housing the refugees in some of the empty houses that sit in Las Vegas after the hit the city took with foreclosures.  The empty houses unfortunately don’t get used for and such purpose but there are some amazing financial assistance programs though to help them get to first time home ownership. When it comes to immediate housing, there are a certain number of apartment complexes that offer lower rent through the different organizations.

I also asked about the success rate of full families versus single adults.  The single adults tend to adapt better to our society.  We got on the conversation about the children and how do they adapt with this change.  I’ve included that in this edited version of the full interview.  I ask that you take a look into these programs in your communities because these refugees are coming to America because they want a new life; They want to be American because they no longer have a life behind them.  If you want to learn more about this organization as well as others like it, please check out the African Community Center of Las Vegas.

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Pilgrimage to Las Vegas

One of my close friends whom I met while I lived in Las Vegas at the beginning of the last decade had decided to move back there to continue her education.  Now ten years older, with a child, she is making this pilgrimage west to the desert.  I didn’t realize that when I agreed to this journey that I would not only be documenting this road trip for Project Kinect, but I would also be looking at a similar path that I took almost ten years ago.

At age twenty-one, I had made the decision to move to Las Vegas.  That August, I helped my friend Corbin move back to Los Angeles for school and we stopped in Las Vegas so I could meet up with a couple different people in order to find somewhere to live when I moved.  Successfully, I met Darren and two weeks after September 11th, 2001, I moved to Sin City.

To do this exact same journey with someone who also took this journey ten years ago really makes you think.  I am shocked to know where I have come in that decade, the adult who I have become and what I have put out into the world.  Were my decisions wise or void of any pre-thought?  Did I get the most out of that time that I possibly could have?  Did I obtain the proper tools to handle what will come in the future?  The answers to these questions don’t really matter but if it caused you to ask yourself similar questions, then something is getting accomplished.  If you would like to continue this conversation with your answers, I would love to read them so feel free to email me at Gregg@projectkinect.com. I appreciate all involvement when it comes to Project Kinect.  WE ARE ALL INVOLVED!!!

For those of you who have asked and I refuse to share it with you, here is a small segment from my book, “I Have Three Kinds of Hiccups” that I shelved about a year ago.  Don’t worry, it will be moving forward again very shortly.

I don’t know why I chose to move to Vegas. People back home still ask me why I moved to Vegas and I always answer with some bull shit like I needed a change, it was inexpensive and I could find work or my best, I really like their theatre department at UNLV. I didn’t even look at their department until I began the transfer process that fall. I was fortunate though, it is an amazing program and I actually did get in.

The truth is, I don’t really know why I moved there. I do know however, that I was twenty years old and I was itching to conquer the world and when I was without a home for the following school year up at UWEC, I jumped. Yes, I was hurt by certain people in the process, but that little hiccup was nothing but a feather in the road as I approach thirty. That moment was one of the defining factors in my life. That moment is equivalent to me learning to walk or drive. I was learning a new vehicle in my life, the vehicle of self empowerment. This vehicle of self empowerment was not consciously inside me before that moment. This vehicle had been in its own little corner of my being and when it came out, it came out!

Once I said it, which was to one person at 9:30 am during an opening shift at Houlihan’s the last Sunday of Christmas break, it was done. My words came out of my mouth with no thought of the consequences they would have. “I’m gonna move to Las Vegas” I said, which was followed with some bull shit excuse, but that moment, that exact moment the words rolled off my tongue, that is when I decided to move to Vegas with no pre-meditated thought what-so-ever. At the end of the summer, after I studied in Cuba, after my over night trip with Corbin to see U2 in D.C., after I lived with the 2 Petes in the Dells, I was gonna move to Vegas. Holy Shit.

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One Month In

Last night I escaped to the pool of the apartment complex I’m staying in.  I’m tending to this nasty sunburn that I received down here on the first couple days when I fell asleep on the beach.  It is not pretty and I am about to get on a train for twenty-seven hours.  I laugh at it because it is all a part of this journey that I am so fulfilled to be on.

While I was down by the pool, I met this woman who had just recently moved with her husband from Michigan.  She was also escaping for a moment.  Her husband was taking care of their one year old while she enjoyed the hot tub.  They moved to Tampa because her husband is in the Air Force and he was placed in Tampa. 

After she told me the basics: How they met? Where they got married? Why they came to Tampa? She told me her passion for art and music from video games that get mixed into different music genres.  Then, we got on the topic of fan fiction.  Remember Claire at the Starbucks in Austin?  She was a fan fiction author.

When I met Claire and her fans, I had no clue what fan fiction really was, but I faked it well.  Last night in the pool, I was educated.  The abridged version is fiction written in order to combine two or more characters from different story or plot lines.  A good example would be if I wrote about Harry Potter in a samurai story with Edward from Twilight.  There are no boundaries to what the story can do so it really unleashes the imagination into limitless scenarios.  Even though it doesn’t have boundaries, it does have very philosophical rules.  I’m not educated enough to really go into them, but can say some thought really did go into the creation of fan fiction.

This conversation at the pool last night though really got me thinking about my journey in just a month.  Tomorrow I go to New York to stay put because I am quickly running out of funds.  In New York I can stay with loved ones who are family and being in New York, I will have plenty of content as well as resources.

My intentions of completing this full year are big and bold.  As I look over this first month, I am overwhelmed by the greatness I have come across. Las Vegas opened my eyes to things that we have overlooked in our country like social responsibility from private entities in our communities, the fact that refugees are still coming to our country in hope of a better life, and what a community looks like when it’s second strongest source of revenue stops.

 In Austin, I met Claire the fan fiction writer, Teresa who is working on a project to really show talented dancers in our country, the entire group from the APASO conference and hundreds of more. Their stories are all individual and have a right to be shared.

This progression of eye opening moments and great lifelong stories have been constant since Austin into San Antonio, Beaumont, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Mobile, Panama City, Saint Petersburg and now into Tampa.  Rhonda sharing with us in Beaumont to my Cab driver in New Orleans talking about the progression of New Orleans over the last fifty years all has relevance in our lives.  All of it as a whole makes us a community and that continues to be an underlying theme in Project Kinect.

I’m not sure yet of the outcome of this year will be and I probably won’t until much later in the year.  I am sure though that there is a benefit to what I am doing even if only for entertainment.    We need to know each other better without judgment and without prejudice.  We will never get further as a society if we don’t take the time and find the common ground with one another.

As I take the next twenty seven hours off line, on a train, heading toward New York City, please take a moment to think about what Project Kinect can mean in your life.  If it does nothing, then that is that.  For majority of us though, we really need that human connection on some level so Project Kinect should really hit close to home.   In order for me to continue with this and see really where this movement can go, I need all the help I can get.  I ask that you please share this, donate, email me, or any other assistance you can think of.  Once I have the resources I need to reach out to as many people as possible then and only then can we see the capacity of Project Kinect. 

Thank you all for your support so far and see you in New York City.

Tons  of love,

Gregg

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