America After 3PM data helps programs care for their students and grow their communities

By Manny Padia, Recreation Administrator, City of Glendale, Arizona and 2025 Afterschool Ambassador.

This blog is based on remarks made during the America After 3PM release event at the National Press Club on October 15, 2025. The remarks have been edited slightly for clarity.

Let me start off by telling you a quick story. I started in Recreation programs at 17 years old. My mom said I needed to get a summer job. A year later, I was 18, working in the same program at Isaac Imes Elementary School, which is the school I graduated from in Arizona. I had a young man, 8 years old, ask me if he could talk to me. I said, “Yeah, buddy, what do you need?” He said let’s go to your office – and at that time my office was a desk in the corner of the room.

We walked over, and this young man looked at me and asked me if I would be his dad.

To stop and think about the impact these programs make on young people – at 18, I was the most mature male-figure that this kid could find. I had to let him know I couldn’t be his dad but I could be his friend. I spoke with the family afterwards and that day changed my life. It changed the way that I view these types of programs. I thought I could just go in and throw dodgeballs at kids, but you realize these programs make a huge difference because we provide caring adults to young people. Not every kid has both parents at home. Not every kid has somebody waiting for them at home after school. So, we give them a place to go. That’s what these programs mean to young people.

Either way, we are going to pay for these kids – in some way, shape, or form – but why not do it in a proactive fashion? The kids could end up in the juvenile justice system if we can’t give them safe places to go. We should not be having to fight and worry about funding for young people; that’s a ridiculous thought and ridiculous place to be. I’ve seen kids grow up in my program that have come back to work in my program because they love what it did for them and they want to do that for the next generation.

America After 3PM data gives us tools necessary for us as providers to be able to go out and fight the fight on our end. Too often, afterschool programs are seen as a bonus. Afterschool programs are seen as extra. Recreation programs are seen as extra. That they’re not necessary, they’re not essential.

But the reality is that these programs provide so much development for young people on the front end that it contributes to the growth of our communities and our economies across the country. I have a young person from my program who just stopped by the club the other day and said “Hey, me and my brother opened up a card shop just around the block, let us know how we can come in and help.” So when you talk about what these programs can provide to communities, it’s resources. Now you have more caring adults that want to give back.

When kids don’t end up in the juvenile justice system and rather end up with us, and we can invest in prevention versus rehabilitation, it’s huge. When you talk about workforce development in these afterschool programs, these programs provide that. When you talk about career introduction and “How are kids going to do that?” it’s because they're going to come in and play.

Our centers are the peanut butter on the celery stick, folks. Kids might not want to eat veggies, but you put peanut butter on the celery stick, drop a couple raisins on it, call it ants on a log, and they’ll eat it up. That’s what afterschool programs are. We teach kids how to play, we introduce kids to careers – things that they didn’t know that they were good at or wanted to try to do. Kids come to us to learn about STEM, and decide they want to be engineers. Kids come to an art class and learn how to crochet, draw, and paint, and decide they want to be a Disney Imagineer. Kids come to use and see the issues we may have as programs and how we may have to shut down around the country, and decide they want to become politicians to change that.

Afterschool programs can be catalysts for change. Now we have to encourage everyone else to support us and make that difference. We are here, we are willing to do the work. We do it because we love it, we know we’re not going to get rich. So let’s do it together.

Read the full America 3PM report or explore your state dashboard at aa3pm.co.