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On Oct. 22 , two rooms at Southside Recreation Center buzzed with chatter as groups of boys and girls discussed how to paint their pumpkins.

As members of the Southside Boys & Girls Club got ready to paint pumpkins, parent Mathia

Cook showed a group of 6- and 7-year-olds how jack-o’-lantern faces are made. They took turns digging into the pumpkins, pulling out clumps of seeds and moist flesh, giggling at the mess.

“We’re going to add dots after we paint it all black,” Lisabeth Ramirez , 8, said of her group’s pumpkin. “We chose black because it’s really scary.”

Lisabeth explained that they could choose Halloween or fall as their theme. She said the prettiest or scariest pumpkin would win a contest.

The pumpkins were donated by Covenant United Methodist Church, club director Kenneth Mack said. He said the winning groups would receive a special treat at a Halloween party.

Diaja Lymon , 8, and her group were adamant about no pictures. “Don’t take a picture yet. It’s ugly,” Diaja said. She said the group was going to let its pumpkin — painted red — dry a little bit before adding a face.

Group member Chastity Little, 9, described the planned color scheme as Diaja, Rashana Winfield, 7, and Asani Smith, 7,
touched up the pumpkin. The face will be pink and the polka dots will be green, pink, yellow and orange, she said.

Checking in later, Chastity announced pink is out. “It doesn’t show up” on the red background, she explained.

“It’s a better turnout than I expected,” Mack said of the crowd. He thought it would be hard to convince kids to stay in on a nice day.

The club, along with Carson Stout and Ward Street clubs, participated in 10th annual “Lights on Afterschool,” a national project of Afterschool Alliance used to draw attention to the need for after-school programs.

According to a Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater High Point press release:

• 12 percent of school-age children in North Carolina are in after-school programs.
• 31 percent are unsupervised in the afternoons.
• 13 percent are in the care of brothers and sisters.

The parents of 36 percent of children who are not already in an after-school program would enroll their children in one if a program were available to them, according to a survey quoted by the Boys & Girls Clubs release.

Holly Ferree, vice president of development for Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater High Point, said the nonprofit served more than 1,000 children last year through its four clubs in the city for children ages 6 to 18.

To learn more about programs offered by Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater High Point, contact Holly Ferree at 882-2582 or holly@hpclubs.org .

Contact E.A. Seagraves at 883-4422, Ext. 241, or elizabeth.seagraves@news-record.com