Changing Lives, One Child at a Time
Near the Greenacres Community Center, one hears children playing basketball and laughing on the playground. Walking through the front doors, there are many colorful food drive boxes, hallways, and even painted ceiling tiles by kindergartens.
At the Greenacres Community Center, they offer many after-school programs: Future Leaders, a program that focuses on what children need and serves over 300 children every year, the Child Care Food program where it provides free breakfast and lunch during camp, and the Little Free Library program where books written in different languages are placed in boxes that go to their 13 parks for children to enjoy reading. In fact, high school students are painting a new box that will be shipped to Freedom Park, their newest one.
“I’m pretty excited about that,” says Michele Thompson, the Director of the Department of Leisure Services at the City of Greenacres.
Thompson, 56, has been working there for 17 years. Raised in Liverpool, New York, she moved to Port Charlotte, Florida in 1988 and has been living in West Palm Beach for 21 years.
The reason why Thompson was compelled to pursue this line of work is that she loves working with people of all ages and diverse backgrounds as well as community partners/organizations in numerous venues and activities.
“It’s very satisfying helping others,” says Thompson.
One of the best moments of her job was a time where she met with retired Gen. Colin Powell in Washington D.C. after the city was recognized as one of the “100 Best Communities for Young People” during 2012–2017.
Thompson is proud to say that they have positively shaped the lives of over 5,000 youths and have helped develop doctors, engineers, armed service members, teachers, and afterschool directors.
“It’s very awarding, it really is,” says Thompson.
A typical workday for her varies from being “stuck” at a computer filling out reports, contracts, memos, marketing, budgeting, etc. to be very active planning, executing programs and events. When she’s not working, however, she says she likes to go boating, mountain climbing, biking, kayaking, and beachcombing.
Since most parents need a place to drop off their children to socialize and learn, Thompson says their afterschool programs teach children important things such as the importance of giving back, turning bullies into buddies, performing random acts of kindness, and being aware of gangs through the Gang Resistance Education and Training program (G.R.E.A.T.).
“The kids need to learn all these things,” she says.
Benjamin Dexter, the Assistant Youth Programs Supervisor at Greenacres Community Center, says anytime a child comes back to say “hi” and that they’re working and doing well in school is a success story to him.
“Once kids leave through the door, we have no idea what they are going through and what they will face,” says Dexter. “Therefore, to see them walk through the door with a smile, say hi, and want us to see how they have grown, that is a true success to me.”
But the Greenacres Community Center does more than offer programs. They also run volunteer work like feeding the elderly. Since 2005, volunteers help feed the elderly during the day by providing meals that the city pays for at the center, and on Thanksgiving, 600 meals are prepared as well, volunteers driving out for about 50 of them to deliver them to the older folk who are unable to make it.
As for the books, Thompson says a woman helps provide them by buying them from Barnes & Noble through a partnership and donates the books to the center. Thompson is very grateful for her help.
The center also rent out their properties, either at the center itself or one of their parks. Out of 13 of their parks, four of them get rented out because they have sports fields. They also rent out their gym. According to Kyle Leaver, the Recreational Aide #2 who helps organize activities like sports, says the gym is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday for anyone with a membership card, which costs $5 and lasts all year. Using the card, they can enter freely whenever they want to play basketball.
They also rent out their community hall for celebrations like baby showers. An employee named Joel has a wife who had a baby shower thrown for her, adults and little kids showing up dressed in suits and white dresses talking and eating food in the decorated hall, having a good time.
The center has about 22 employees and gets funded by county grants to keep the afterschool programs functioning for all children from kindergarten to high school. The Afterschool Youth program was opened and licensed since 1995 and served 6,000 kids since then.
“It’s all about the entire child,” says Thompson.
