As I ascended the concrete steps into the sprawling building, I couldn’t help but notice a sign hung that said, “Enter ye leaders of tomorrow.”
I walked in and was promptly greeted at the front desk by a woman named Miss Lucy. I can still remember everything she said, “Well hello there! We are so happy that you are here. The gym is to the left, the game room is to the right and the art room is right behind you. Make yourself at home.”
This was my first day at the Boys and Girls Club. I was 6 years old, and it was my mother who sent me. Earlier that week at school, I had been playing with some of my friends and they came up with the bright idea of having a “Blonde Club.”
Well I was just as excited as they were, and I let it be known that I wanted a membership in their club, too. They were quick to inform me that my hair was brown, not blonde, and I didn’t look like them, so I wouldn’t be allowed to join their club.
As my mother picked me up that day, I sobbed to her about the situation and how it wasn’t fair. I managed to choke out through my tears, “They said I couldn’t join because I didn’t look like them, but I don’t look like anyone.”
Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood and attending a school close to home didn’t present me with a lot of opportunities to see people who were brown like me.
Well, my mother definitely changed that fact the day she sent me to the Boys and Girls Club.
As I walked into the gym, I saw two girls doing the double dutch with their jump ropes. They had dark brown skin and rows of braids on their heads. I thought they were the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. They invited me to join in and didn’t even laugh at me when I face-planted on the gym floor. I found out that their names were Sasha and LaDericka and they were a year older. They taught me how to play spades and do the tootsie roll.
I accompanied my new friends to the art room next. It was around Christmas time and everyone was making watercolor pictures of Santa. I quickly noticed that all of the brown paint was being used at the moment because every child in the room was painting his or her Santa brown. This made me so happy because every Santa, Jesus and angel in our house was black. And the kids in the art room thought he was black, too.
While I was busy making my art masterpiece, someone turned on Cartoon Network and I could hear Scooby Doo howling in the background. An older kid changed the channel to BET’s “Soul Train,” and the room broke out in free style dancing. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. There was definitely some talent in that room.
Suddenly, Miss Lucy’s distinct voice sang out from the P.A. system,“ Alyse Eady please come to the front desk. You have a call.”
Mom’s voice was on the other end of the phone. “How is it going over there?” she asked. I rambled on and on about how much fun I was having and how I had learned new games and dances. She told me that she would be back to get me in an hour and a half.
The rest of my day there was filled with bead necklace making, buying Laffy Taffys from Miss Lucy at the front desk, coloring pictures with Sasha and LaDericka, learning how to braid and playing hop scotch.
On the way home, I told my mom about all of the friends I had made and all of the fun things we were able to do. I remember how happy I was after my first day at the Boys and Girls Club.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I totally belonged. But at the same time, I realized that my friends at school and my friends at the club weren’t all that different. Of course they looked different and even talked a little different, but they all enjoyed participating in the same activities.
I ended up becoming an official member of the Boys and Girls Club and went back often to have a good time, participate in sports and be around my friends. It became, in a sense, my second home.
I had no idea that my first day at the Boys and Girls Club would serve as a catalyst that would make the club play a huge role in my life all the way into my 20s.
Somehow the club always found new ways to continue giving. Many of the kids I spent so much time with at the club ended up attending college because of scholarships given by the Boys and Girls Club.
The club gave me an outlet for making friends, a place to volunteer and a summer job when I got a little older.
I’ve met with the president twice, spoken in front of Congress, been a Boys and Girls Club ambassador in Turkey and Germany and even met Denzel Washington because of opportunities that the club has provided.
Whenever I’m in town, I always try to go by the Boys and Girls Club where I grew up. The sign on the building was true.
I walked up those concrete steps and into that building a timid and lonely child, but I walked out of that building 18 years later with the skills that I needed to become a leader of tomorrow.
