Maria Adams-Lawton is the founder of Afterschool Kidz Zone LLC and here is her story.

In 1984, after graduating from high school, Maria Adams-Lawton started working at Golightly Educational Center as a paraprofessional while attending Wayne State University majoring in engineering. At that time the parent group was trying to start an after school latch-key program for parents who needed before and after school care for their children. On days when she didn’t have classes Ms. Adams-Lawton would volunteer and work for the program. She worked in the program for a couple years until she received a fulltime job. In 1990, Ms. Adams-Lawton decided to go back to school and become a teacher. In 1994, she never forgot her wonderful experience at Golightly and was selected to do her student teaching at Golightly that school year. During this time she started back volunteering in the afterschool program again.

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In 1996, the director of the program was retiring from the position and asked Ms. Adams-Lawton to be the director. Ms. Adams-Lawton held the position until 2007 when the new parent board decided they no longer wanted the responsibility of running the program and asked if she wanted to take over the entire program. In 2007, she changed the name and now operates at several locations with over 250 children.  Afterschool Kidz Zone LLC combines recreation, education, life skills and role modeling in a year-round program. The youth participates in a variety of sports and enrichment activities such as soccer, basketball, baseball, football, cheerleading, water polo, tennis, skiing, lacrosse, swimming, & track and field. The youth also participate in enrichment activities by focusing on archery, dance, art, karate, chess, robotics and drama activities during the school year.