Girl’s Place, Reichert House programs offer more than after-school retreat
Every Wednesday afternoon, kids of all ages are dropped off at Ironwood Golf Course.
Prior to coming out to the Gator Junior Golf Association’s weekly sponsored classes, many of them had never previously stepped foot on a golf course. One by one, the kids hop off the school bus, excited to be freed from the hallways of their respective schools for the day, and head down to the driving range.
It’s the young women from Girl’s Place who are instructed first.
Founded in 1982, Girls Place, Inc. offers programs for young women with the goal of empowering them to grow into courageous, strong and self-sufficient young adults. For the last three seasons, it has been sending some of their girls to learn the game from a few of our staff.
Among them is Lewis Richardson, a coaching veteran who, though teaching the Girl’s Place students for four seasons, has been coming out to Ironwood with his son and his friends for well over a decade. “Coach Lewis”, as he is affectionately called by the girls, most enjoys watching the kids grow to love golf over time.
“It gives me the the experience of watching the kids develop in a sport that I never had the privilege of learning when I was a kid,” he said of the program. “I was 34 the first time I ever stepped on a golf course.”
A typical Wednesday at the golf course for the Girl’s Place young women includes independent group stretching, followed by either an hour of hands-on instruction on all things golf swing or on-course playing instruction with our staff.
“A lot of them didn’t have any previous knowledge of golf,” said Charlie McKnight, the athletic director at Girl’s Place. She has been coming out to Ironwood with her girls for the past two seasons, seeing firsthand the unique way golf sparks interest. “What they thought of golf was it being a boring sport and they come out here and they learn that it’s quite the opposite.”
At 4:15 p.m. promptly, the girls retreat to their bus and head back to the Girl’s Place after-school program, making way for the young men of Gainesville’s Reichert House.
Reichert House, founded in 1988, offers an after-school program that provides assistance to adolescents often from neighborhoods with high crime rates, having poor academic performance and living in single-parent households. In 2016, Gator Junior Golf partnered with the program to provide weekly after-school classes at Ironwood directly after its all-female counterpart.
Rodney Robinson, Intervention Specialist at Reichert House, has been there since the beginning of the partnership, when our President Sean Warner invited him and his program to participate in a consistent schedule of golf classes.
Since then, Robinson has been bringing his young men to learn a game they would otherwise not have been exposed to, given their circumstances. It’s proven to be quite successful.
“We got more than a couple of kids who have shown real interest in the game,” he said. “It really just exposes some of our at-risk youth kids to something else besides basketball and football.”
Through it all, one thing remains constant: kids that would usually never have the opportunity to pick up a golf club are getting the chance to learn and enjoy the great game.
At the Gator Junior Golf Association, that’s why we do what we do.
The young women of Girl’s Place enjoying some end-of-the-year pizza.