Hub: More than just basketball
Published 2:22 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
This month marks the beginning of another basketball season for the Snoqualmie Valley
Youth Hub. Close to 1,000 youths are expected to take to the
courts, perfecting pick-and-rolls and playing zone defenses in
school gymnasiums from North Bend to Fall City. And countless
volunteers will spend their time walking the sidelines as coaches,
manning the scorekeeper’s table or just making sure everything runs
as smoothly as possible.
Over the past decade, Hub basketball and the
non-profit organization’s other after-school and summer programs have
become staples of Valley life. Fritz Ribary, chairman of the Hub
Advisory Board, said the success of Hub depended on the support
of the Snoqualmie Valley School District and
Redmond-based Friends of Youth, which provides residential, treatment and
support services for children and families.
Last fall, officials with Hub and Friends of Youth
announced that the organizations were formalizing their relationship,
with Friends of Youth taking over the management of Hub. In this
first full year of the new relationship, Carl Thompson, Hub director,
said most Valley residents won’t notice a difference.
“I think it’s good for the Valley because it’s not going
anywhere,” he said of Hub. “All programs will stay the same.
There might be minor changes in the way we operate.”
Ribary said Friends of Youth has always been there, behind
the scenes, ready to assist Hub whenever it asked.
“That partnership has been a critical element since Day 1,
and it remains a critical element,” he said.
“For many years, their focus and their public image was
that of counseling troubled youths, and they looked to us as
preventive maintenance.”
But with Friends of Youth managing the Valley
organization, Hub has access to resources that before now it may not
have been able to provide, and it helps stabilize Hub’s funding.
Ribary said Hub can provide more referrals for children and families
needing assistance, and while the organization has received
United Way funding in the past, those who contribute to the United
Way can now specify that they want their money to go to Hub.
“You can donate [money] to the United Way and earmark it
for Hub,” Thompson said.
It also gives Hub the policies and procedures — such as
conducting background checks for those who work with children
— that a growing organization needs.
“You’ve got to have policies and procedures in place in
case things go sideways,” he said. “Small groups these days,
they just can’t afford to do that.
“[The partnership] recognizes that Hub is a successful,
viable program in all the things that it has been doing,” he added.
Thompson said it also gives Hub the opportunity to
create programs and not worry about whether it can afford the
insurance needed to provide the activity.
“They’ve got such a big insurance program that we
don’t have to worry about `Is this feasible, do we have to call a
lawyer?'” he said.
Thompson said that last year Hub served 1,709 youths,
with close to 800 in basketball and about 100 in the track
program. Without the support of the Snoqualmie Valley School
District, Hub wouldn’t be able to offer as many programs as it does.
“Without utilizing the schools, boy, I wouldn’t
know what we’d do,” he said. And Hub needs the facilities as more
and more people move into the Valley.
Ribary said it’s that partnership that has allowed Hub to
focus on serving youth instead of building facilities. When Hub
was formed in the early 1990s, several area agencies suggested
that the Valley organization should build some kind of
multipurpose facility to attract youths.
“It seemed that their focus and their suggestions were, `One:
Get a whole bunch of money. Two: Get a facility. And three: Open
its doors,'” Ribary said.
Ultimately, Hub board members decided not to follow
those suggestions, instead creating a program-based organization
that used local schools to house their activities, for which they
charged a nominal fee to participate. They started with basketball,
which Ribary said continues to grow by about 20 percent a year, and
added after-school programs, such as arts and crafts, games and
tutoring. Also, youths may participate in various outings, summer
sports camps and day camps and even a fly-fishing class at Sandy
Cove Park in Snoqualmie. Along the way, the SnoValley Track
Club joined forces with Hub, as did the Rise program, which started
at Snoqualmie Elementary School and provides after-school
reading, tutoring and the opportunity to learn foreign languages.
Even more sports will be featured this summer,
Thompson said. “We’re going to try to do a golf program at Mount Si,
and we’ll probably do a tennis program for a couple of weeks.”
Despite the growth in Hub programs and
participation, Ribary said its focus remains what it was 10 years ago, when
residents kicked around ideas for creating youth activities in the
Valley.
“We’re trying to address that `X’ percentage of the
population that says, `There’s nothing to do. There’s nowhere to go.
I’m bored,'” he said.
