Founded in 2000, Club Kids in Danger Saved Inc., better known as Club Kids 414, offers fun and safe enrichment opportunities and activities for lower-income children of all ages to help keep them off the streets and out of jail. Every event this nonprofit runs is free for the community and many include food, live entertainment, guest speakers, community resources and more. In addition, the organization offers programs such as “Get a Kid off the Block,” where Club Kids 414 gives inner-city families an opportunity to explore a different world by offering them donated tickets to sports games, festivals, museums and more; “Bags of Hope,” which provides families bags full of food, clothes, shoes, socks, underwear, toiletries and other necessary everyday items; and the “Diva Girlz & Dudes,” a dance team for 6-16-year-olds that performs at all of the nonprofit’s events and throughout the city. Club Kids 414 serves thousands of children each year.
Executive director of Club Kids 414, Marcus Duke, says, “I can’t thank our volunteers enough for all the great work they do to help me keep going. We would also like to thank all the sponsors big and small for the financial support over the years—without them, none of this would be possible.”
Club Kids 414 is seeking sponsors and in-kind donations of toys for its Saturday, Dec. 20 holiday event “Christmas N’ Da Hood” at the Urban Ecology Center (1859 N. 40th St.), where hundreds of children between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. will receive free toys, food, a picture with Santa, a haircut and more. Items needed are shoes, toothpaste and toothbrushes, coats, crayons and coloring books, hat-and-glove sets, balls and any other holiday gifts appropriate for children. This entirely volunteer-run organization is also striving to open a safe-place student center and theater for kids of all ages and is in need of sponsors to help achieve this goal. Toys can be dropped off at 224 N. 35th St. For more information about upcoming events as well as donating, sponsoring and volunteering, call 414-380-3853 or visit clubkids414.org.
