GDAY HALF DAY NETWORK
The Groton Dunstable Alliance for Youth's (GDAY) Half Day Network continues. The goals of the network, are:
- To raise parent/community awareness about safety issues for children and teens on early release days
- To facilitate the planning of programs and activities in the community designed to keep children and teens safe, supervised, and having fun.
The Half Day Network will continue to place articles in local papers and newsletters to keep parents informed of half day programs and safety issues. There are slight changes though to our facilitation of program planning.
For the past two years the Half Day Network has worked in partnership with local agencies to coordinate a variety of youth programs. Partners have included the Groton Public Library, the [now closed] Groton Recreation, Groton Police, Groton Dunstable Youth Soccer Club and the Groton Dunstable Youth Basketball League. These programs have been well received and the partnership opportunities essential to our success. At the same time, as programming efforts continued, we realized that ongoing needs of families are well beyond our capacity of volunteers and funding. The reality is that many families require programs longer in duration and/or need assistance with transportation. Communities across the country need to work towards addressing and supporting these family needs.
GDAY remains committed to the safety of our youth. To that end, we will be sending letters to local organizations asking that, when their staffing and resources allow, they plan programs on half days that provide interesting activities for kids and meet the needs of families as mentioned above.
Additionally, we will be contacting local businesses frequented by Groton Dunstable families. We are requesting that they provide discounts to Groton Dunstable families on half days of school. If you know of any businesses that wish to participate in such a program, please forward this information to them.
We also wish to suggest that Groton Dunstable families support each other on half days. Half days present an opportunity for families to share child/teen supervision and transportation. As a community of parents, we can work together. One suggestion is to look at the half day schedule and develop a plan with friends and neighbors to share supervision or coordinate activities.
Finally, GDAY welcomes all parents and community members to join us. Share whatever time and energy you have available- all of which enhances the community's support of our youth.