Alberton group focuses attention on area youth
ALBERTON - A group of Alberton women stopped by the Mineral County Chamber of Commerce meeting April 16 at the senior center, to explain to attendees why the new group is so important.
Promoting Excellence in Alberton-area Kids (PEAK) was established in October as a dream, but since has held many activities for Alberton youth.
“What we’re trying to do is bring in activities for the community as a whole, but focusing on kids and getting them active in the community while providing them with things to do,” said Laura Acker, one of the founders of PEAK.
The activities that have happened so far have been a community tree lighting in December, a winter festival, and an establishment of a community scouts program. The group said some kids have already joined the new program, which is coed.
PEAK recently had their first community service project on April 18 to help clean up the park for the Easter egg hunt.
“The reason why we need this group is because Alberton lost their after school funding,” Acker said. “They weren’t going to have any summer programs this year.”
The group also explained that after some vandalism occurred on town property, people thought it would be unfair to punish the kids who were responsible because there aren’t enough extracurricular activities in the area to keep kids busy. This was a motivating factor for the founders to establish PEAK.
PEAK will be hosting its first art auction this spring in the Alberton school gym, where students will be able to show off some of their creative art.
“People can come in and look at these really creative pieces of art that these kids have created,” Acker said.
The group also has a lot of special activities planned for the upcoming summer when kids are out and about and need something to do.
“This summer we are also bringing community theatre to Alberton, which is really exciting,” Acker said. “The production is called Briar Rose, it’s a musical, and it was written by my cousin, who is a writer, director and actress in Minnesota.”
The kids can be more involved with the production, and will be able to help create the set by painting backdrops or making costumes, or even taking one of the lead parts as one of the cast.
The group also wants to bring Shakespeare In The School back.
“It’s a program that was in Alberton schools and funded by a library grant that we had,” Acker said. “We lost the program after the grant ended.”
The creators of PEAK want the group to expand by word-of-mouth by telling others in the community about the good things that are happening and can happen in the future.
Also, parents don’t have to worry about finding things for their kids to do this summer when school is on break. The gals are already using their creativity to map out a plan of attack for a way to keep those kids busy.