Youth First helps underprivileged kids connect

Some of the Latino moms at Oak Terrace Estates Mobile Home Park in Ramsey call the kids' program next door the "escuelita de Heidi."

Translation: "little school" of Heidi Geiss, director of the Youth First Community of Promise. The joint-venture program provides activities and homework help for at-risk kids and uses sports events to introduce them to police in Ramsey, Anoka and Andover.

Youth First, run by Geiss and an assistant, is lauded by police, teachers and kids. When the full after-school program resumes in October, Geiss expects to serve about 25 sixth- to 12th-graders four days a week in Ramsey, 15 at the Anoka center, and roughly 10 to start at the new Andover site, which is opening in a former tanning salon at Crosstown and Bunker Lake Boulevards. Teens and elementary-age children participate in summer activities.

"We have real relationships with all the kids we serve so we get to know them, and that is the key," said Geiss, a social worker who has been leading the program for almost five years. "Because of the relationships it is a lot easier to hold them accountable."

Youth First is modeled after a national program founded by Gen. Colin Powell. It works with schools, churches, governments and businesses to give at-risk youth a healthy start by providing safe places for constructive activities, a useful education, ongoing relationships with caring adults and service opportunities.

There is a strict no-violence policy in the program, so when two teenage boys got into a fistfight last summer, workers stopped it and talked to them about what happened and how to handle it better, Geiss said. The boys couldn't return for a week. "There are consequences and the kids see we follow through," she said.

Almost 80 percent of the kids' families are from Mexico, and an equal share are from lower-income families, Geiss said. Whites and blacks -- some Sudanese immigrants -- also are served.

"Heidi has great rapport with the kids," said Chandra Kreyer, a crime-prevention officer for Ramsey. "It helps set them on the right track. ... The relationship building has been a huge improvement. We could never have gotten our foot in the door over there (Oak Terrace) without Heidi and the relationships she built."

Homework before fun

A handful of teens were making homework collages one afternoon last week at the Ramsey center, on Hwy. 10 west of Sunfish Lake Boulevard. The students must do homework at least half an hour before they can play foosball or other games, Geiss said.

"They teach you a lot of stuff and help you with your homework," said Mateo Herrera, 15. "You have fun when you are done [with homework]," Herrera said.

He said he learned to respect Geiss and assistant Kelly Thorsten since he started coming last year. He said he stopped swearing at the center and his school grades have improved to mostly B's and A's. He liked the summer field trips to Cascade Bay water park in Eagan and the Wabasha Caves in St. Paul, where gangsters used to hang out.

This summer six kids earned a trip to Valleyfair by doing 40 hours of volunteer service. Martin Montes, 12, said his service included translating for staff members with Spanish-speaking kids and parents, weeding around the Ramsey center, and clearing off the walls so they could be painted.

The Ramsey center is a city-owned warehouse with an empty lot outside for soccer. It has a spacious main room with foosball and air hockey games, wall-size chalkboards, work tables, sofas and a computer lab. The lab's six used computers are donated and maintained by the Anoka Hennepin School District. The district, Anoka County and the three cities founded the nonprofit program in 1999. A joint board oversees and provides primary funding. Ramsey and Anoka Lions and Rotary clubs and area businesses also have donated time, money and food for the kids.

Ramsey police officers team up with their Youth First kids to play monthly basketball games against cops and kids from Anoka. Andover kids and Anoka Sheriff's deputies, who patrol the city, will join the games this year. The three police agencies plan to play paintball with the kids next month, Geiss said.

Youth First started its first center about eight years ago in Anoka's Highland Park neighborhood, which was a high-crime area, said Anoka Chief Philip Johanson. Police calls to the area since have dropped for juvenile loitering and other petty crimes, he said.

"It makes the neighborhood safer and has helped the neighborhood pull together" to form block clubs, Johanson said. Youth First won a $200,000 federal block grant and to buy and renovate a Highland Park home that will replace its smaller rented center, Geiss said. She hopes the house will open by Thanksgiving.

Kids get a second chance

Kreyer said that after a rash of bike thefts in August Ramsey police talked to Youth First kids and their parents, which led to the arrest of a few youths in the Youth First program. "We took corrective actions and worked with them," Kreyer said. "They make mistakes but we are going to get them back on the track."

"We get some tough kids, but with time we get to know them," Geiss said. "They deserve a second chance."

She said she and Thorsten watch their students play at Anoka High football or soccer games and go see their projects at science fairs. Geiss' office wall displayed several pictures of "our kids" who graduated from high school last year. She said two of the boys now attend nearby Anoka Technical College and a girl graduate enrolled in the National Guard.

"Many of the kids here don't feel connected [to school or the community], but they tell us what is going on in their lives, the things that make them upset," Geiss said. "The way I measure success is these boys will come here every day and spend their Friday nights [on monthly movie nights] here instead of wherever else."

Many Youth First students attend Fred Moore Middle School in Anoka, where sixth-grade teacher Lisa Sorenson said she e-mailed Thorsten homework assignments for two boys last year. Initially the boys, who faced language barriers, had trouble getting their work done. Thorsten talked to their parents, and helped one mother who spoke little English. By January the boys were getting their assignments done on time, Sorenson said. They also developed social skills with friends they met at Youth First, she said. Sorenson added:

"Anytime you can get someone else involved with kids' lives it is beneficial for the kids, parents and school."

Jim Adams • 612-673-7658