Boys & Girls Club Recruits New Director
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Del.icio.usThe Windward Boys and Girls Clubhouse tapped a member of its advisory board, Maureen Purington, to be its director, and it seems a perfect fit for her talents and the clubhouse’s needs.
Former clubhouse director Akoni Racoma remains on staff to oversee programs, while Purington handles the community networking, development and recruits members and volunteers.
Recruiting shouldn’t be a problem - she already has tasks in mind for all four of her own children (age 8 to 25) and her husband Kim, a Kalaheo High graduate. They can help her build up the ocean sports program, she explained. And residents of Pohai Nani, where she previously worked, have offered to help with after-school activities like table games and ballroom dancing.
“I’m going to use as many volunteers as I can,” said Purington, who worked in marketing and resident services at the Kaneohe retirement facility over the past five-and-a-half years. “Pohai Nani residents still have a childlike curiosity about life. I want to take that and pass it on to the kids.”
Coming up quickly is the six-week summer program June 9-July 25 for ages 7 to 12, which includes two excursions and costs $160 per person. (Parents may enroll their children at the clubhouse, located at Kailua Intermediate School. For details, call 263-0555.)
“A huge advantage for me as the new director,” she added, “is that there is already a staff in place: They know who the kids are, what programs are working and what can be done to make the club even better. I’m looking forward to working with Akoni Racoma, Susan Kawaa and Koa Lyu.”
Purington admits that she loved her job at Pohai Nani, which made it hard to leave. “Yet it connected me to the Windward side and gave me a great foundation for marketing the Boys and Girls Club.”
Pohai Nani resident Selma Kuklinsky expressed it this way: “Maureen, take our heartfelt thanks for your devotion to us through the years and go with the knowledge that we won’t find it easy having you drop out of our daily lives. (But) kids learn early who loves them.”
Speaking of those kids, one of her new goals is “to have 100 kids a day coming to the clubhouse.” In fact, she envisions a haven not much different from her own Vermont childhood in a rambunctious household that welcomed kids. “My home was like the clubhouse. I had five brothers and one sister. It was a safe place to be with something always going on.”
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