Becky Spencer thought for sure she was going to make a career of being a children's camp director.

But during her first summer out of college as day-camp director at the YMCA of Greater Toledo's Storer Camp, Ms. Spencer discovered that many of her young charges had nowhere to go when programming ended each afternoon at 3 o'clock.

"Some of the kids just hung out at the camp afterward, and their parents sheepishly came in at 5 and picked them up," Ms. Spencer recalled last week. "We added extended care to day camp, so parents would have a choice, and it made me wonder what was going on for these kids during the rest of the year."

Ms. Spencer, 48, last week was named one of 22 "Afterschool Ambassadors" nationwide by the Afterschool Alliance, a national coalition of after-school program operators.

She remembers the first day the local Y offered after-school recreation at its South Branch in Toledo: April 4, 1982.

"We serve over 2,200 kids now, and I'm still here," she said, adding participants come from all demographic backgrounds, contrary to popular perception that they're mostly lower-income.

The YMCA/JCC of Greater Toledo program involves children from 114 schools throughout Lucas, northern Wood, and southern Monroe counties. Now in her

27th year with the Y, Ms. Spencer has been in charge of after-school programs since 1988 and is the agency's vice president of child development.

As an "Afterschool Ambassador," Ms. Spencer will volunteer for a year organizing public events, lobbying policymakers, and working to build public support for afterschool programs that she says help children stay in shape, become better socialized, and avoid trouble when they lack adult supervision.

"Afterschool programs keep children safe, inspire them to learn, and help working families," Jodi Grant, the Afterschool Alliance's executive director, said in a statement announcing Ms. Spencer's selection. "The public strongly supports afterschool programs and wants to see them expanded, but at the federal level and in many states, dollars for these programs are frozen or even shrinking."

"Kids have opportunities to be engaged after school, instead of being home alone," said Ms. Spencer, a native Toledoan whose two grown children are both alumni of the local Y's afterschool program. "I have seen kids who have left after school, and then they came back overweight, not as social, and just not growing."

She said the after-school programs' scope has evolved from a strictly recreational focus to working with children, especially older ones, on such life-skills issues as job preparedness and avoiding teen pregnancy.

Program planners also have to adapt to a shifting regulatory environment concerning issues varying from vehicle safety - one of the program's ongoing expenses is providing transportation from schools to YMCA/JCC branches - to basic hygiene: all afterschool program participants now are required to wash their hands immediately upon arrival.

Ms. Spencer said she doesn't see becoming a national voice for afterschool programs as taking away from her local work, because it will only involve one out-of-town trip and she already is active in promoting such programs.

"Probably the only time I'm not working is when I'm asleep, and even then sometimes I'm dreaming up new ideas for afterschool," she said. "I want to make sure all kids have places to be with adults who care about them."

First Published September 24, 2007, 10:28 a.m.