Girls Day unites 200 youths with mentors at Lied club
Zariah Russell, 9, sat on a brick retaining wall outside at the Lied Boys & Girls Club. She scooped chocolate ice cream out of a foam cup with a wooden spoon as the sun glinted off the gold-colored crown on her head.
Zariah was one of 200 girls who participated Oct. 7 in the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada’s 36th annual Girls Day. She spent the afternoon with Melissa Bacon, one of 200 more women from the community who volunteered to partner one-on-one with the girls for a day of games, mentorship, snacks and bonding.
Zariah’s crown was meant to resemble that of Marvel’s Wonder Woman. This year’s theme was “everyday superheroes”: members of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Clark County Fire & Rescue were there, including Enterprise Area Command Capt. Roxanne Burke and several of her female officers.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada operates 14 facilities and serves more than 22,000 children in the valley. The first club in the valley opened in Henderson in 1950, when the organization was still known ats the “Boys’ Clubs of America.” In 1990, the group rebranded itself as the “Boys & Girls Clubs of America,” according to the nonprofit’s website.
In the Lied club’s gymnasium, girls danced to music, played carnival games and watched retired magician Lance Burton perform. Outside, girls ran football drills with the Raiders Junior Training Camp, toured fire trucks and police vehicles and ate lunch with their mentors.
Girls Day and the corresponding Boys Nite Out have been huge events for the Southern Nevada chapter for decades, said Paula Pettit, marketing director for the chapter. Boys Nite Out was conceived at the national level for boys who didn’t have a father or father figure. The event provided an opportunity for men from the community to act as mentors for a few hours to the boys and has been held in Southern Nevada for 46 years.
It was Kathy Clayson’s first time volunteering as a mentor.
“I had heard all about it. I just never had the opportunity to do it,” Clayson said. “It’s rewarding to see (the girls) have a good time.”
Clayson was there with friends and former co-workers Rachel Brown and Tori Jolly. This was Brown’s fifth year as a mentor and Jolly’s second . They said they enjoyed making the girls feel special and connecting with them.
“I like getting to know them, and what they like to do,” Brown said. Though she doesn’t volunteer with the club regularly, “… this is the one thing I like to do every single year.”
Pettit said that after the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, organizers had thought about postponing or canceling the events for both boys and girls.
“But for us it was about the kids,” Pettit said. “And the kids need this now more than ever. And I think so do we. We powered through and we were like, ‘We’re going to make this happen.’”
At the boys event two nights before, more volunteers showed up than there were kids to match them with, Pettit said.
“Men just wanted to come and help out, which was amazing,” Pettit said. More than 250 male volunteers attended, for an event with just 200 boys.
Contact Madelyn Reese at mreese@viewnews.com or 702-383-0497. Follow @MadelynGReese on Twitter.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada
Information: 702-367-2582, info@bgcsnv.org or bgcsnv.org
Social media: facebook.com/BGCSNV, instagram.com/BGCSNV or twitter.com/BGCSNV
