 Hi, I'm Noza Jibali and I'm here with the CTN member highlight. I'm here with Amy Pichette from LearningWorks and we are here today at the Lights On After School Program event. Amy, how are you today? Good, how are you? Good. So tell me a little bit about Lights On your event today. Lights On After School is a rally to celebrate and show off what great work that after school programs across the nation. This one is all about Portland, what we do every day with kids after school. Nice. And what about the event? Who's here and can you tell us a little bit about the programs that you have? So my program's here, LearningWorks After School, and we're a 21st century community learning center funded program. But we have Portland Recreation, a company of girls who helped to put this together with me and the Children's Museum and Theater of Maine and Portland Museum of Art and Portland Community Squash. All here, Boys and Girls Club, all here to show off what they do and tell the community how great they are. Nice. So obviously it's very important not just school but also after school is a very important part for kids. A lot of them can join sports or after school activities like your books and things like that. How important is it to be involved and have them do something that's out of their comfort zone as students for using the programs such as you have? It's very important. Instead of going home and doing something that isn't as engaging, the kids can come to a variety. We have so many different after school programs in Portland itself and become engaged in theater and sports. So tell me about a little bit about the statistics of children that are involved in after school activities versus the children that are not. In Portland, the programs that are represented here today, there are about 2,500 kids enrolled in these programs and I think there are about 7,000 kids in the district. So that's a good amount of kids involved but we still need more kids who are on waiting lists or are not involved in some sort of after school program and the need for more funding and more support with the community is there. And that's what we're here today to celebrate that and show off. This event is a good kick start. Learning works after school has been around for eight years, this is our eighth year. And we're trying to do a lot in the community. We're known in our schools but beyond that it's not as well known. So an event like this and talking to groups, school board and elected officials and trying to get our name out there and Facebook, we have a new Facebook page, Learning Works After School Portland and our website and it's a lot of connections with people and meeting with people is how we're trying. What we're trying to do is give students more opportunities to learn different things and in different ways. And I think all of our programs here do that and try to reach out to students in their interest. So if they're interested in drama, get them in a drama program. But Learning Works After School is a little bit different in that we're in with the schools and the schools are trying to help us to enroll kids and get those students in there. And I feel like our programs are helping get kids interested in school so giving them the confidence, getting them experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have and then be more apt to get involved in something in school during the day too and just build their confidence and have fun. Hi, I'm here with Jennifer Rowe from Accompany of Girls. Hi Jennifer, how are you? Hi, I'm great. How are you? Thank you. So tell me a little bit about your company. So Accompany of Girls is an after school program and we use the arts primarily as ways to work with girls to empower them, teach them 21st century skills, teaching them team building, empowering them and really helping them kind of find their voice. So the way that we do that is through the arts. So we do performing arts, visual arts and culinary arts with the girls. Oh nice. So is this something that they can do through the school or is it something that their mothers or their parents would have to enroll through your own? They enroll through us. We're a completely free program for our after school program though so we bring girls from their schools to our program space on Forest Avenue. So yeah. Nice. So do you, they have transportation, is that part of the thing? Part of it is we provide transportation. We want there to be no barriers for kids to be able to be in the program. If we have room and we can get them there, we'll get them there. So in the performing arts, what are some of the things that you've seen that your students have improved in by being in your program? Yeah, I mean I think theater particularly is a really great way to work with kids to really strengthen their self-confidence, their, you know, how they present themselves in public. They can really grow through theater and sort of we work on literature when we're working on the scripts. They're learning, you know, kind of about the words in the script and then they're able to present them to a community. So there's just this entirely amazing process that they go through and then they come out with a performance in the end. And so that's they share with their family and the community and it's just, it's such an enriching experience for them to kind of feel powerful and empowered and just really find their voices. So I love that as a way to work with kids. And being in today's society, I feel like our girls are so important. We need to build their self-confidence so they can grow up to be self-confident women. What are some of the things that you would say that we need to kind of do in our society to encourage girls such as programs like these and encourage them to kind of be all they can be? Well, I think what's really interesting is that girls actually lose self-esteem as they get, go from elementary school into middle school, which is sort of for me stunning to think like they're actually losing self-esteem rather than gaining it. Rather than gaining it, right? So I think programs like after-school programs particularly can really get in there and work with the kids to kind of keep that going, A, as they go through those transition periods. So from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, and it kind of puts the support system under them. So like we partner with a bunch of the different agencies in town to kind of surround these kids with a kind of cloth of support on all different ends. So it takes a lot of us. It takes a village to raise the child. It does. It can't be just one program. They have to be able to kind of keep it going and go from one program for one age to a different kind of programming to a high school version of a program that's a little bit more mature. So just to kind of follow along with them on what's going to empower them the most. And girls really, I think, particularly, I mean, I'm a girl, so I believe that, but I really think they need a little extra effort in that area sometime and we're seeing that play out right now. So which is amazing. Yeah, I mean, so it's important. It's important they feel supported. So yeah, what would you like to tell the community? How can they help you or how can they assist you? What can they do to assist you further this more? Well, I think an event like today is fantastic because it's just awareness. So for we are a very small organization in town. So for us, just the awareness of being able to help present this, you know, this awesome day to celebrate. And for us, getting the coming to performances and getting to know our girls and getting them to feel like part of our community is really, that is so empowering. I mean, Portland is an amazing community and so supportive. So having them feel like they're part of Portland, it just, it's the best. So it's really, yeah, anything to say, you know, oh, you're from a company of girls. That's awesome. You know, I know your program or whatever. Just like even that will lift them up. So, yeah, just so can you give it? So give us your contact information. So if anybody wants to assist, how can they get in contact with you? So we're a company of girls. So it's a company of girls.org and we're located now at Woodford's Corner 671 Forest Ave. So we've got a great program space there. You can stop by or check out our website, give us a call. We work with all the different Portland schools. So, you know, you can find us through a school system as well. So, yeah, just reach out, find us, look for our shows. We're doing performances all during the year. So, yeah, Charlie Brown Christmas. Thank you so much. Thank you and thank you for all the hard work that you do. Thank you.