Eager volunteers, tables filled with arts and crafts, and a pumped up DJ await as students begin to file in for some Christmas fun. The gym at Gotham Avenue Elementary School will soon be filled with nearly 400 first to fourth graders for this years Christmas party. Patrick Boyle, Executive Director of Gateway Youth Outreach, Inc., along with his staff, put together this party for the children who are a part of GYO at Gotham, as well as students from nearby elementary schools. The toys given to these nearly 400 children, the pizza delivered for them as well as volunteers and staff, and the surprise visit from Santa Claus were all sponsored by GYO. This event would not be the first that GYO has had to sponsor without the help of government funding since the budget cut in July.

“We had programs that had 800 kids in them every day after school. Nassau County in their infinite wisdom decided in July to cut our budget completely. We do have one program that is being run through a state grant at the Gotham Avenue School for 100 children, but that means that 700 kids don’t get programs,” said Boyle. This great decrease in numbers of kids who don’t get programs does not begin to show the devastation of the budget cut.

Parents of children that attend elementary schools in the Sewanhaka Central District who are used to having summer programs and afterschool offered to them through GYO were forced to find alternative programs, most likely at a high cost or at an inconvenient location. Luisa Celis, parent of an 8-year old at the only open afterschool program in the districts says, “This is just a life saver for me. Babysitting is expensive and I cannot work to pay babysitters. If they cut the program, I probably won’t be able to have a job.” Like many parents who work full time, Luisa just needs somewhere for her son to stay for an hour or two until she is off of work and able to pick him up.

Gateway Youth Outreach does not only consist of afterschool programs. The staff of GYO works with students who are on probation and they allow them to do community service as well as provide them with counseling. More counseling is provided for elementary and high school students and their parents who live in Elmont, if there is a problem within the home. Also, GYO deals with superintendent suspensions in order to help a child that is in trouble get back into school faster. “We run a myriad of programs and whatever the need is in the community, that’s what we’ll do,” said Boyle.

GYO is a not for profit corporation that receives a certain amount of money from Nassau County to run the business and provide it’s different programs. The total budget for GYO for the year is about $328,000. For all 43 youth service agencies in Nassau County, the budget was $7.3 million. In relation to the $2.6 billion budget for the whole county, the budget for youth services is a mere 0.002%. “To me it’s just a war on kids and there families, the county is very short-sighted,” said Susanna Isaacson, former member of the Nassau County youth board. After the budget cut, Isaacson was told she either had to retire early or she would be laid off. She decided to retire a year early and did not receive her full 30-year pension.

The politics behind the budget cut made by Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano gets complicated, but Mr. Boyle was able to explain it in layman’s terms. “It was because of a fight between redistricting and bonding, it had nothing to do with youth services,” said Boyle. Politicians were not concerned with the welfare of the children and their families, but more so they were looking out for their own jobs when it came to making the decisions for the budget cuts.

So what is in the future for youth programs in Nassau County, more specifically Gateway Youth Outreach? At 4:29pm on October 11, GYO received a little over 50% of their money back for funding. Now, the program will be able to serve about half as many kids as it did when it received full funding, this means close to 400 kids in total. “They can still use us as a pawn because they have only given us back half of our money and they know we want the other half because that is how we serve as many people as we do,” said Boyle. It is the hope of many working parents that 100% of the youth programs in the Sewanhaka Central District community as well as throughout Nassau County will be restored soon. The guidance that these programs provide for the youth is necessary and imperative to the thriving communities of Long Island.