DeAndre Brett drives a golf cart with course ranger Bill Johndon

Two churches help U City kids

Two youngsters from the Republic of Azerbaijan are kids participating in the Big Kids Place after-school program at Brittany Woods Middle School in University City. It and another one for younger kids are run by volunteers from two local churches.

Big Kids Place is for 6th and 7th graders from Brittany Woods and the McNair Sixth Grade Center across the street. Kids Place helps for younger kids at the Delmar-Harvard Elementary School.

The two Kids Place programs do more than just help with homework. There's time for fun, food and activities as well.

Huru Mummadova

Most of the kids in the Kids Place programs are native St. Louisans.

But, the program is of special help for 13-year-old Huru Mummadova and her 11-year-old brother, Javid Mummadi. (In Azerbaijan, the kids' last names have different endings, depending on whether they are boys or girls. Azerbaijan is one of the independent republics that split away from the former Soviet Russia.)

Huru said she and Javid knew only a few English words before they came to America in August, 2001. They came with their mother, a graduate student at Washington University.

Huru said, "My mother is always busy with her own class work. So the Big Kids teachers help me with mine. Mostly we work on social studies."

Huru already speaks English well. Now, she said, "I'm trying to do my best and get A's and B's in my classes."

She said her favorite activities are the art projects the kids do after their evening meal. Two projects in October involved Halloween. In one, they made a trick to use when "trick or treating." The other was carving pumpkins.

Javid Mummadi

Her brother, Javid, gets tutoring in math. He's already written a book on poison ivy. His Big Kids Place teachers are going to publish his writing in book form.

Big Kids Place is in its first year. Huru and Javid were in the Kids Place program last year.

Kids Place was started in 1998 by volunteers at University United Methodist Church. It was an outreach effort for kids at Delmar-Harvard Elementary School in University City.

The program started on a one-day a week basis. It was for two hours and involved about 20 kids. These were kids who could benefit from extra help in school. At first, it was for kids up to 5th grade.

But, as the first kids got older, they wanted to continue in the Kids Place program.

So, this year, a group of volunteers from Grace United Methodist formed Big Kids Place for 6th and 7th graders. The Kids Place workers help with the younger kids.

At Kids Place, the program is now three days a week. And on two days, the hours have expanded to four. Big Kids Place is twice a week for four hours each time.

In the longer sessions, the kids receive an evening meal. A total of 45 kids are in the two programs.

In addition to in-school activities, the Big Kids Place kids take field trips. One trip in October involved a visit to nearby Ruth Park Golf Course.

A big hit of that visit was when the kids got to drive golf carts around the course.

DeAndre Brett

One of the native St. Louis kids who got to drive a cart was DeAndre Brett. He's an 11-year-old 6th grader. He's been in the Kids Place program for three years and likes it.

DeAndre said, "I get lots of help with school work." He said he likes the teacher activities and the field trips. In addition to the golf course trip, he said he liked the visits to the police station and to the Riddles restaurant.

A big attraction at Riddles was getting to see how ice cream is made. Of course, he and others also liked the chance to sample the homemade ice cream.

One of DeAndre's activities is writing "nice" rap poetry. The group is going to put those poems in book form next spring.

Help with reading is a big part of both the Big Kids Place and Kids Place program. For the younger kids, 30 Washington University students come over to tutor the kids one-on-one.

Also, another part of the churches' volunteer work a special 8th grade math tutoring class.