With many parents working one or more jobs and with the rise of interest in electronic games, many children are finding themselves isolated from the outdoors and lacking after-school activities meant to engage them with other peers.

Riverdale Park's Youth Committee held a meeting Monday to discuss the potential of initiating after-school programs for the children in the community, most notably a 4-H club facilitated by the University of Maryland.

"It's hard to keep the attention span of kids these days," said Councilman Raymond Rivas. "It's hard to compete with the electronic games and kids are too enclosed." 

Although many residents may have their children signed up for after school programs, too often, low income children are the ones that are left with limited options, Rivas said. Either both parents hold full time jobs, children have to look after their younger siblings, safety issues or lack of transportation prevents them from participating in afterschool programs.

Council members are looking to collaborate with Shante Stokes, an Extension Educator with the University of Maryland, to start a 4-H chapter in PG County, as well as a robotics program.

"We have programs at the Riverdale facilities where we have a robotics programs which I would like to have kids access to," explained Shante Stokes.  "With the 4-H club, we plan to focus on financial literacy, substance abuse prevention, citizenship civic engagement, workforce readiness and communications skills."

The robotics program would be geared towards nine to fourteen year olds and would focus on some aspects of technology, science and biomedical engineering and some assistive devices – all while building a robot. 

The 4-H club will place a heavy emphasis on communication, life skills and workforce readiness.

"These days kids are asking me about jobs and skills assessment," said Rivas.  "Kids can learn about those things along with networking, resume advice and potential future business plans in the 4-H club."

The programs will be needing support from the community residents and Stokes added that volunteers will be needed recruited from the Riverdale community as well as from the University of Maryland.

The council members also discussed the following:

-      Possible Location of the 4-H club, hours and the admission fee

-      Transportation accessibility

-      Possible types of programs to focus on

-      Keeping both parents and kids involved in the community as well as with each other.

-      Involvement with the school curriculum and homework agendas

-      Funding and community support

The council will meet up in September to finalize the plans for after school programs and ideas.