Boys and girls clubs are a direct hit.

Pretend, for a moment, that you're an American teenager who has just moved to a new neighborhood. You feel isolated. You miss your friends and are struggling to make new ones. There's a language of the streets, but you don't speak it. Then one day, you find help. You venture into a safe, positive place where you can meet with friends, where everyone speaks your language and where adults care about what happens to you -- the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Sounds like a scene from thousands of neighborhoods across America, right? But, it also holds true thousands of miles away at American military bases in Italy, Turkey, Spain, Germany, South Korea and dozens of other locales around the globe.

Even youngsters whose parents are stationed in places straight out of a travel brochure -- Naples, Frankfurt, Sicily -- face challenges their peers in the States can't begin to imagine. While all military children are familiar with isolation -- most bases are built to serve as self-contained cities complete with theaters, bowling alleys, churches and schools -- it takes on added depth in a foreign country, where language and cultural barriers abound.

Geographic barriers play a role, as well. Sigonella, the Naval Air Station in Sicily, is situated on some of earth's most picturesque acres, replete with sheep, goats, olive trees and vineyards -- but not much else. Lajes Field, which houses Air Force, Navy and Army operations in the Azores, a remote Portuguese island chain in the Atlantic, is located on Terceria, an island just 18 miles long and 10 miles wide -- surrounded by shark-infested waters.

The transiency of military life also takes its toll. Most families are posted at a base for only two years.

Perhaps the most distressing factor these youngsters face is the constant specter of conflict. Their parents either fly, drive, sail, maintain, or support the machinery of war.

Kids at Osan Air Base in South Korea live just 1z minutes by air from the tense 38th parallel that divides North and South Korea. A recent military alert for the base meant those youngsters had 1z minutes to prepare for a possible attack. Not only could their parents be injured, so could they.

Positive Place on the Base

Realizing that these pressures take a huge toll on military kids, the Air Force has led the way in affiliating youth centers on its overseas bases with Boys &

Girls Clubs. The Navy is close behind in terms of active Clubs, the Marines have signed a memorandum of understanding with B&GCA, and the Army is expressing interest.

"These youth centers are the only game in town overseas," notes Patti Kasold, senior child development and youth specialist at the Department of Defense. "The alliance with Boys & Girls Clubs will help us strengthen our programs and provide the same level of services as we do in the States."

Jane Rodgers, head of the Community Recreation Section's Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MOOR) Division for the Bureau of Naval Personnel, expresses a similar belief. "Affiliation is a goal for the Navy because we want to align ourselves with the best youth-service organization there is," Rodgers said. "Your goals and objectives at Boys & Girls Clubs are the same as ours. Together, we can meet them more effectively."

Those goals are to help these organizations and the people who staff them to provide youngsters on military installations with consistent programs, so they can go from Club to Club -- or from continent to continent -- knowing there will be a Youth Center where they instantly know they will fit in and be welcome.

"The logo and traditional Club programs offer these kids stability from place to place. If they were involved on their last base, they'll have some familiarity and continuity on the new one," notes Glenn Permuy, B&GCA's senior vice president for services to Clubs.

Got With the Program

In fact, programming may be the greatest strength of this relationship. "We had good programs before," notes David Quinn, who oversees youth programs for the Air Force's European division, "but BGCA has provided some common strands tying our programs together and enhancing consistency. We can't always research the latest and best techniques to develop a wide spectrum of programs, but now (the Boys and Girls Club) provides us with ideas for successful initiatives."

According to Quinn, who's located at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, affiliation with Boys & Girls Clubs provides youngsters a much-needed link with home.

"When families relocate from the States there is a certain amount of cultural shock. Boys & Girls Club programs help kids establish a feeling of roots in an unfamiliar locale," he says.

A STAR is Born

Military Youth Centers receive the same services as any Club, and that starts with the attention of a B&GCA field service representative. Ronnie Jenkins, vice president for services to Clubs, is handling those duties. Assisting him in the field are Tim Richardson, senior director for program services, and Chris Corrado, director of training and development.

Richardson and Corrado are known as STAR (Standing Together for Americans

Relocated) Abroad team leaders for program and training, respectively. Individuals from Clubs on military bases will be selected as STARs and serve as field consultants for other Clubs.

The STAR Abroad approach also encompasses a newsletter and training conferences scheduled for fall 1998 -- one in Frankfurt, Germany, for European Clubs and one in Hawaii for Pacific Rim Clubs. The events will serve as a combination program institute and administrative conference.

"These conferences will provide leadership and programming, bringing people together to develop a sense of shared mission," says Jenkins.

The alliance also signals changes for the personnel who staff these Clubs. Though they are still employed by the military, they are also part of the Boys & Girls Club Movement and will receive training and opportunities just like any Club professional.

"The partnership offers military personnel who work with Clubs abroad an opportunity to stay with Club work in the U.S. if they're reassigned there," notes Permuy. "They'll be received just like any other Club personnel."

Down the Road

Estimates indicate that if all branches of the military affiliate their Youth Centers with Boys & Girls Clubs, as many as 70 organizations could participate in Europe alone.

"I think we've seized the moment in terms of response," says Permuy. "Our military effort has opened a door. Our international presence speaks to the global village we operate in."

Right now, it's enough to know that life just got a little better for kids at places like the Navy's Administrative Support Unit in Bahrain, a desert facility on the Persian Gulf, where it's 110 degrees and jets zoom overhead -- reminding youngsters that the threat of conflict is ever present.