By: John C. O'Connell
Elks join with Youth Council to host teen dance
About a hundred young people from all over the community gathered at the Elks Lodge Friday night to dance, have fun and celebrate all that's good about being a Valley Stream teen.
Organized by a collaboration of local schools, the village recreation department and the Elks, the relatively new Valley Stream youth council held its second dance for teens in grades 9 through 12 at the New York No. 1 Elks on West Jamaica Avenue. Under the guardian eyes of Elks leader Anitra Butler, Youth Board members Kenneth Heino and Roger Bloom, and Gateway Youth Outreach coordinator Joyce Hummel and others, the teens had fun dancing, playing darts, shuffle board, board games, and just being kids in a safe, alcohol-free, drug-free, smoke-free environment.
It costs $5 to get into the dance at the Elks Lodge off Rockaway. For that, the teens get dancing, games, food, and fun in a supervised, protected, safe environment with as many as a hundred people their own age.
"This helps give kids something to do," John Loyal, the 15-year-old presiding officer of the youth council, told The Herald Friday night.
Echoing the lament of teens almost everywhere, Loyal said that there's nothing much to do for young people in Valley Stream. "This all started in January. Prior to that, we'd just be sitting at home wondering what is there to do," said the 10th grader at Central High School and the former student council president at Memorial Junior High.
"Here, now, we can play Trivial Pursuit, shoot pool, dance to a DJ playing the newest music, play shuffle board, and lots of other things. I think it's a great, safe environment where we can have a lot of fun. Then word gets around about it, and we will have even more teens here," he said.
The youth leader would like adults to know that even though "the impression they have of us kids is not always a good one, we're out here trying to be good, not only for ourselves, but for the community as well."
Indeed, the youth council isn't just about playing safely; it's about giving generously of the teens' time and energies to make life better for others.
After one other dance at the Elks in January, that attracted 68 teens, the council planned a "senior prom" for the senior citizens at Valley Stream's Monica Village. Twelve young people spend hours at the senior center there and everyone had a great time.
Fourteen-year-old Lauren Martini is the student council president at Memorial, as well as being on the youth council. "One of my teachers, Mr. Bloom, approached me two years ago about the teen group. He said that there's this thing called the youth board starting and it's a way of doing things and providing services in Valley Stream and would I be interested in joining it."
And so she did. "Kids now come to our dances and volunteer for the good works we do from Central and Memorial, North, South, Chaminade, Kellenburg, St. Mary's, Sacred Heart, all over," she said.
"What we wanted was something fun to do where it's safe and where you know people, and meet new people there, too. It's better than just hanging out at home. Now we enjoy going out more because it's safer here, it's indoors, and we feel it's fun."
Not all teens fit the stereotype," Lauren said. "We want to show the community that youth are capable of doing good things. There is so much in the newspapers about teens doing drugs; we want everyone to know that we do good things, and that they should have a better impression of us.
"After we did the prom at Monica Village with the seniors there we got this letter," she said with pride. The letter, from Mary Conner, read: "To all of you, the most wonderful people I know. You left me and all of us with warm, happy memories. I hope I can get to see all of you while I can still appreciate all of it. God bless you all and all your families."
"I believe in a strong community," said one of the board members, Valley Stream's Kenneth Heino. "In spite of so much bad publicity about youth, there's so many good kids and we see what they can do."
Among others, the youth board includes Anitra Butler, Virginia Clavin, George Baker, Don Gately, Ken Heino, Roger Bloom, and Joanne Antun.
Five or six youths are on the board as well: John Loyal, Lauren Martini, Steve Cusamano, Andrew Grant and Dan Vongprateep.
Roger Bloom has been a Memorial social studies teacher for six years and teacher representative to the youth board for two years. "I created the youth council last May," Bloom said, "to try to come up with volunteers to address problems of safety," the Hewlett resident said. "There's not much to do at night for kids in Valley Stream, so the Youth Collaborative formed with the Elks, the schools and the village recreation department to come up with programs like this teen dance night at the Elks that are alcohol-free, smoke-free and drug-free, safe events."
Another goal is to give youth a positive image in the community, Bloom said. "Youth can do good and give to the community of Valley Stream. There are 98 kids here now," he said at the Elks Lodge No. 1 Friday night, "who are saying no to drugs to smoking and to alcohol."
Future events planned by the council include more dances at the Elks Lodge, community awareness barbecues at Hendrickson Park and a youth council trip to Shea Stadium.
