A safe place

A secure place

Carito says the Saugerties club, which has an annual membership of at least 325, is correctly viewed by the children and teenagers who belong as a “partnership.” Winter’s the busiest season.

“It’s not an ‘us’ against ‘them’ situation,” he said. “When they walk through these walls, they are supervised youth; we can handle every issue,” said Carito.

“The biggest issue we see is self-esteem. A lot of kids, in my opinion, are beat down mentally. They may excel at video games, but their confidence drops in other areas, especially [academic performance],” he said.

Every single day during the school year, Carito says he asks a kid coming through the doors, “Do you have homework? Let’s see it.”

Roland says it’s “really obvious” how being able to escape from the real world into the secure club atmosphere “makes a tangible difference” in kids’ lives.

“There’s a lot of bullying which happens on the way here from Cantine field,” he said, with a knowing and serious look in his warm brown eyes.

The Saugerties club building, completed in 2006, is an impressive purpose-built facility located at 45 Partition Street, adjacent to Village Hall. The national network of youth service clubs, whose parent organization is The United Way, began shortly before the Civil War in Hartford, Connecticut.

“A group of women who were tired of kids running the streets brought them into their homes,” said Carito.

According to its mission statement, the Boys & Girls Club of Kingston, Saugerties Unit – the local club’s awkward official name – seeks to redirect children who might otherwise “find their own recreation and companionship in the streets,” to a safe place to learn and grow, where they will also have fun and “know that someone cares about them.”