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Wildcats Nourishes Coastside KidsBY JOAN THARP February 2004 - It's a cool November afternoon in Pescadero, California, and Paisley Nash-Dooley is behind the wheel of South Coast Children's Services' van. It bumps along past Duarte's, a family-run restaurant famous for its artichoke soup and homemade pies, then crosses the bridge over Pescadero Creek. Paisley hangs a right, motors along for a bit, and then pulls off to the side of the road, across the street from Pescadero Elementary School.Suddenly, two handfuls of kids explode across the street toward the van. They line up at its door and start to pile in, and the van starts shimmying and bouncing from their uncoiled energy. In a few minutes, each of them will be wrapped in a seatbelt, and the crew will be off on another adventure in the Wildcats after-school program.
Four times a week for two hours after school, the comforting paws of the Wildcats program embrace 35 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in this rural stretch of southwestern San Mateo County. Wildcats is virtually the only local after-school program available to the 60 kids between the ages of 9 and 11 who live here among the ranches, farms, beaches, timber tracts, and parklands that make up the area known as the South Coast. About 5,000 people call this 130-square-mile area home. Pescadero, the largest of the four towns, with a population of 500, is about 70 percent Latino and 30 percent Caucasian, with a mix of professionals and agricultural workers. More than 70 percent of the K-8 students in Pescadero qualify for subsidized lunches, and about that same percentage are learning English as their second language. Third Year of Foundation SupportWildcats, run by Pescadero-based South Coast Children's Services (SCCS), got under way in 2000, after receiving a $57,000, two-year grant from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health. In 2003, the Foundation renewed and upped its support for Wildcats with a $135,000, two-year grant. The latest grant allowed SCCS to hire Paisley full time as project director, expand the program from two to four days a week, and start a summer program, which will debut in 2004. "Wildcats fills a tremendous need for kids in these rural communities near the coast," says Foundation President Stephen Peeps. "Given the scarcity of services in that region, we're pleased that we could expand our support for this program."
Wildcats fits the Foundation's Area 2 focus of promoting the emotional and behavioral health of preteens. It incorporates key elements of youth development by providing kids with a safe place to explore skills, and to develop good relationships with one another and with adults. Much like the 100-year-old Duarte's, where diners sit around heavy, nicked tables as they dig in to slabs of fresh olallieberry pie, Wildcats nourishes kids with the basics. The youngsters spend as much time outside as the weather permits -- running around at the beach, hiking in nearby Butano State Park, walking through the avian-rich Pescadero Marsh, or learning how to swim in the outdoor pool of a local retreat center. At the end of the year, the kids go cross-country skiing at Bear Valley resort near Lake Tahoe. The program also shows South Coast kids the world on the other side of the coastal foothills. Last year, field trips "over the hill" included a performance of the Nutcracker and dinners at several ethnic restaurants. Helping Kids Explore Healthy PathsPaisley, the 26-year-old director of the program, grew up in these parts, and she knows what's good and not so good about living here. If you have an adventuresome nature like she does, it's a great place to lose yourself exploring the fields, woods, and marshes. But if, like other kids, you feel stuck at home for hours with nothing to do and nowhere to go, you can easily find yourself on a trail of trouble. Wildcats steers kids in the right direction. It not only gets them physically active, out of the house and away from TV and video games, it also teaches them to make decisions, treat others with respect, and act responsibly. "It teaches us discipline," comments 11-year-old Javie Aranda, who sometimes needs to reset the idle of his naturally high-revving engine by jumping up and down in place. For example, when the program kicks off in September, the kids decide what they want to do and where they want to go during the year. When a child has to miss an event, Paisley expects the child, not the child's parents, to call her. Wildcats' small size -- each day's group has no more than nine kids -- and the constant mingling with caring adults really help the shy kids and the ones who stumble over speaking English, says Paisley. "We work very hard to make sure everyone gets heard," she adds. Rayna, a 10-year-old girl who participated last year, at first wouldn't utter a word. After a couple of months, however, she started speaking up. Cristina, 11, who is in this year's program, practices her English during walks and hikes, and taught Paisley how to say "poison oak" in Spanish. A Snack, a Chat, a Game of TagOn a recent drizzly November afternoon, it's a day to simply hang out with Paisley on the deck of the retreat center, having a snack of berry juice, crackers with peanut butter, and pumpkin seeds, and talking about the upcoming eight-mile hiking trip in Butano State Park. The conversation quickly and spontaneously turns into a game of "who can come up with the weirdest imaginary beast that just might live up in the hills."
"Two-headed mice!" shouts elfin Jeanie, and the kids break into squeals of laughter. Then, its time to clean up from the snack and get ready for a game of Elbow Tag, in which you're safe from being tagged "it" if you link elbows with someone, but you have to run if someone else hooks on to your partner. "I LOVE ELBOW TAG! AHHH!" Jeanie screams with joy. Javie, Jeanie, Ricardo, Nathan, Javier, Bobilynn and Jessica spill down the stairs from the deck and out onto the lawn, seven little Wildcats tumbling about amid the oaks and redwoods of the South Coast.
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