The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - Kathy Carpenter and her team at the Cardinal's Nest in Waitsburg make sure kids have a place to go after school where they can get homework help and do fun projects.

Carpenter, the director, said the Cardinal's Nest afterschool program was funded by a No Child Left Behind 21st Century Community Centers grant through the federal government. Educational Service District 123 helped facilitate the grant money and the funding allowed the Cardinal's Nest, located at Waitsburg Elementary, to provide programming to students for free, Carpenter said.

The grant money provided the funding for 10 staff members.

In 2008, the Waitsburg School Board decided to keep the Cardinal's Nest alive even though the federal grant funding ran out. The Cardinal's Nest became a non-profit 501C3 and it relies on obtaining grant funding from local sources and payment from families to fund two staff members and a high school student worker.

Carpenter said the Cardinal's Nest runs Monday through Thursday after school through 5 p.m. Students in kindergarten through eighth grade attend. The staff provides homework help and educational activities. Payment is based on a sliding scale according to whether families are eligible for free, reduced or full-price lunch and pay $12 to $30 a week. Parents can also enroll elementary students in the Cardinal's Nest just to wait for older siblings to take them home, between 2:40 and 3:10 p.m. most days.

"The primary focus is providing a place where students feel safe, nurtured and are getting academic enrichment," Carpenter said.

One of Carpenter's favorite aspects is allowing a high school student to work with the program to give them some real-world job experience. One former high school student worker has actually returned to the Cardinal's Nest to work in one of the adult staff roles, she said.

Because of the various ages of students in the program, the older students become quality role models for the younger students.

"The older kids all mentor the younger kids," she said.

During the after-school program, students are fed a snack and then head outside for some physical activity. Then, they can sit in a quiet area and get some help with homework or they can do a variety of science and art projects. Carpenter said the kids have made exploding volcanoes, robots out of blocks, papier-mché masks and even rubbery modeling clay. The projects offered are chosen based on the interests of the students and the day, she said.

"We want them to know learning is kind of fun," Carpenter added.

To keep the Cardinal's Nest operating, Carpenter applies for grants every year. She gets grant money through the Northwest Grain Growers as well as the Blue Mountain Community Foundation.

In 2009, the community foundation game $7,500 to the program and $5,825 in 2011, according to Lawson Knight, the executive director of the foundation.

"Cardinal's nest is a great investment for a variety of reasons," Knight said. "First, having an out-of-school time program for children whose parents work is important for a variety of factors. These reasons vary from safety to nutrition to social engagement and more. A second reason is the quality of the enrichment offerings. Besides homework help, Cardinal's nest has done many different things to reach youngsters from robot building to arts projects. This leads to a final reason, which is quality leadership. The reason the program exists and offers such great activities for students is because of leaders like Kathy Carpenter. She has done wonderful things like navigating the original program from a federal-grant funded program to its current nonprofit status."

Carpenter said there wouldn't be a Cardinal's Nest if there wasn't such a close relationship with the Waitsburg School District, which provides the space, support and allows the program's staff great communication with teachers.

Carpenter's goal is to continue to spread the word about the program and reach out to parents whose students may benefit. When the program was free, she said the program had 65 students every day. When the federal grant funding was eliminated and parents had to pay, the number dropped to about 10 kids every day. Now, the program has about 20 kids a day and Carpenter believes that's a promising sign.

"I would love to see us have more children again," she said. "It's coming back."

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