I recently had the opportunity to help unveil the new permanent art installation created by the youth  of our community at Golf Mill for the Niles Teen Center. This is a cause near and dear to me. It is amazing what after school children’s programs can do to help keep our kids off the street at what I refer to as the “witching hours.” I teach a Township-wide free gang prevention seminar that I developed seven years ago and this is one of our main themes;that parents need to know where there kids are but equally important, to enlist the community to develop programs and places where kids can hang out and want to hang out. Niles has done an admirable job in both these respects!  Particularly in this project. Much as we don’t like to admit it, sometimes gang graffiti has encroached into the northwest suburbs and is frequently referred to by experts in the field of crime prevention and gang violence as the calling card of the gang. What is so great about this Niles project was having these  kids channel artistic and creative skills into an art project. The many participating youth were asked to each make a “tile” with a theme of pride in their community and then the tiles were made into a huge collage for permanent display.