SPARK (Scholastic Preparation,  Arts, and Recreation for Kids) has started. I can now, with people in mind, talk about my “participants.” I can make plans that will actually be enacted.

My days are filled with research, planning, preparing, and my afternoons are filled with laughter and yelling and simple math problems. All last week I came home tired, but energized (is that possible? does that make sense?) because these kids are a handful but when I met them, I loved them.

Monday we had our first session of SPARK with the Lil Sparklers, the 5-8 year olds. I like this age group, and my housemate B, a former teacher, agreed and offered a reason why: “They love you, the teacher, and think you’re great.” It’s true…the littler kids can be challenging (I believe in evolution so much more by watching little kids than anything else, they are basically monkeys with some kind of human language)…but they ultimately still think you’re so smart and awesome because you helped them find the right rhyming word or add whole numbers quickly. So, the affection little ones give is certainly a perk, but I love that silliness and magic and fun are such a part of them.

Tuesday we had our 9-12 year olds, the Sparklers, and honestly, my least favorite age group. So of course, because I don’t particularly like this age group of kids, God (a real jokester, or meanine, depending on one’s outlook) decided it would be a great day for me to run the group on my own! My coworker was out sick, and while I had some help to fill in, I was basically in charge of running the activities and ensuring smooth transactions. At first, I wasn’t nervous because we only had 5 kids signed up as of that morning. By SPARK’s starting time, that number had doubled, as parents stopped by to hand in applications or called to tell me their kids would be showing up at my door. Uffda. I would like to say I handled it with grace, but I really was like a chicken with her head cut off. I had to prepare snack in time for their arrival, but I also have to greet the kids as they get off the buses. The snack we had planned (mini-waffles) fell through (not enough for the kids), so I had to improvise (“Oh, God, what’s in this freezer to feed them!?”). I found some French toast sticks – fine, it’ll do – but then couldn’t figure out how to work the industrial size oven…so I wouldn’t describe this afternoon as a smoothly running one. I managed to heat all the snacks in the toaster in time to set the places, make the juice, then run to the door as the buses pulled up. I can’t complain too much; I am flexible, I can figure stuff out. But not an ideal way to start day 2 of the program.

The rest of that group went okay. Of course no one had homework (LIARS!) but I managed to keep kids busy, actually helping some kids study for an art test and finish their homework. I should mention that most of the kids in this group were boys, so, anyone looking to give me an award for keeping, like, eight 10 year old boys from killing one another or themselves, go ahead.

All I can do is give it up to God and realize, whatever happens, happens. The kids are learning, and so am I. And even if I’m not sculpting little minds or inspiring them to reach for educational stars, like some Hollywood movie, I realize that I’m part of a program that is good clean FUN for kids in a place where good clean FUN for kids can be hard to come by. The ever-present specter of Poverty and its companion challenges all cast shadows in the lives of many of these kids. So if  H, one of the Firecrackers from our teen group, wants to giggle mercilessly at a fart joke, how can I not giggle along?

Besides, like Mark Twain wrote, “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”

I like to think I’m helping these kids by arming them with bright, infectious, beautiful laughter in a world devoid of such joyful noise.

Kate B. is a long-term volunteer at CAP's Eagle Community Center. She is a member of the McCreary Volunteer Community.