After-School AWESOME

"After-School Oregon" will be one of the most important programs for all of Oregon. Our kids are our future and they are too important to not focus on. These kids will share our future so let's give them a leg up on everyone else.

After school programs have already been well documented and proven to cut teen delinquency in half. Proven in less drug and alcohol use. Crime goes down, incarceration drops. Education and mental health progress dramatically goes up. Everything can change for the positive with a well-planned after-school program such as "After-School Oregon".

Millions of dollars are being spent each year incarcerating our juveniles in detention centers, needing mental therapy and a chain-reaction of money spent on in so many areas associated with this issue. Let's cut that dollar amount in half, save the state millions of dollars and use that money to rebuild our After school system. Our tax dollars spent with intelligence.

Getting youth off the streets and out of gangs can lead to a lifetime of positive impact. Saving the state hundreds of millions over a 10-year period.

It has been studied that risky teen behavior happens between 3-6pm. Let's instead teach them new skills that can further their life...but let's make it fun in doing so. Let's make it so kids WANT to stay at after school. If it's not fun then attention span will be lost.

Music, sports, art, job training skills presented to the kids not as a mandatory school subject but as a proven way that let's the kids choose what to focus on.

And more importantly, it needs to be free for the parents. Many families cannot afford to keep their kids in after-school programs. No longer will that be a problem. Parents, rest-assured your kids are staying in a safe and positive environment and coming back home all the more enriched.

When 1 kid gets sent away to a juvenile detention center, not only will it affect him/her for the rest of their lives but it also impacts their family. A chain reaction of money lost, depression, a lost connection between parents and their kids and higher suicide rates. We need to get on this fast. Oregon will have the most diverse and innovative after-school programs ever.

We need to take action fast and spend the resources needed to make this happen. The overall positive affects this will create for our youth will far out weigh the cost. The money saved by creating a much larger After-School Oregon program will benefit Oregonian tax-payers.

Join in support of After-School Oregon as we implement this program into each and every willing and able school in Oregon.