It’s down time at Jarrett Middle School — at all public schools on holiday break, in fact.

That made it a perfect time for the staff of After-School All-Stars Hawaii to gather for a day-long intensive training, sharpening skills needed to run a program geared to enrich the education of children in that precarious middle-school age range.

Standing with the site coordinators and other program staff representing the seven Oahu and three Hawaii island public schools — and also wearing the uniform, a bright orange shirt — is Kimi Takazawa, newly appointed as president and CEO of the nonprofit organization.

This is one of 19 chapters in this national network that started some 20 years ago.

Next school year will mark the Hawaii chapter’s 10th anniversary, and Takazawa said she wants to mark that milestone with a celebration.

Activities range from sports to the arts, the emphasis depending on school needs. Waianae has an especially strong athletic focus, for instance, while Jarrett kids love theater — last year’s “Beauty and the Beast” show won the Brown Bags to Stardom talent competition.

The program is offered in schools serving lower-income areas, qualifying for Title I federal funds. About half the $2.1 million budget comes from government sources, she said, with the rest a mix of corporate and individual donations.

Takazawa, 47, is married with two sons, 13 and 15. Both are Boy Scouts, another youth organization where Takazawa worked in marketing and development. But the Punahou School graduate who earned an English degree at Columbia University and studied Japanese language and culture at Sophia University, never saw herself in youth programs.

She’s happy to be here now, though.

“It was a weird, circuitous path to where I am now,” she said, “but you know, it all makes sense, for some reason.”

QUESTION: What was the genesis of ASAS-Hawaii?

ANSWER:The way it started was a group of community organizers basically felt there was a need to help kids in disadvantaged areas. It was actually interesting that one of the founding members, he saw a picture in ‘08 … a photo of a kid from Waianae, with his homework after school crawling into a tent at the boat harbor; he’s homeless.

And (the founding member) comes from a more privileged background, and when he saw that, he said, “Wow, that’s something we could do for Hawaii to help all of Hawaii, all the kids.” …

Then they discovered After-School All-Stars, a national organization. And then after researching it more, they felt that maybe we need to start a chapter here.

Q: That was in 2008?

A:We started in 2008.

Q: So, what niche is this filling?

A:Basically what we are is, we are in 10 schools, and we only focus on the middle-school space, middle/intermediate school, because we feel that age is where we can make the most impact for the kids. …

Elementary, they have A-Plus, those kinds of after-school programs. And the high school you have OIA sports, right? You already have a lot of after-school programs.

But the middle-school space? There is no middle school after-school program. .… And you know, when they’re becoming ‘tweens and teens, that’s where they can fall through the cracks.

Q: Because they’re not quite old enough … ?

A: I think that the parents think they’re old enough to take care of themselves — you know, they’re not in elementary school anymore, right? So they think they can leave them alone.

But that’s really where they develop a lot of their social skills, what they’re going to make of themselves, what they’re planning to do with their lives.

And that space, there’s just like a vacuum and a gap. And if you don’t fill it with healthy, wonderful and enriching programs, they’re going to do, say, joining the gangs. Doing the drugs. Not setting good habits, for study habits, for the future. …

Q: Was the focus on athletics kind of the beginning of this organization?

A:We have four initiatives. So one, the first one that it started, was “Sports as a Hook.”

The history of After-School All-Stars nationally was, it was started with Arnold Schwarzenegger, if you can believe.

Q: Really! Should I have known this?

A:No, I don’t think so. He’s our honorary chair, and he actually was the founder of After-School All-Stars. He was part of the Invictus Games (an adaptive multi-sport event, like Special Olympics and Paralympics) in L.A.

Once a year they would bring a lot of these impoverished area schools to come together to do a one-shot, one-day, one deal. It was a sporting event, because he’s a sporting guy, right? Driving around L.A., he just saw that, “Hey, what are these kids doing? Why are they just hanging around after school?” …

The group around him realized that this one-shot deal is not …

Q: Enough?

A: … not enough, right? So they created this concept of After-School All-Stars, and they started with Sports as a Hook. … Through sports you can learn a lot of life lessons, and life skills.

But once they started the program going, they realized that we’ve got all these kids doing sports, but what about the other kids? The kids really loved the enriching program, but they wanted more. So they came up with different areas.

One is called “We Are Ready.”

Q: That’s school prep?

A: Yeah. So, it’s like a bridge program. We use it for the eighth-graders … to bridge them over to the ninth grade, to high school. We teach them good study habits, we teach them life skills that they can use.

And the eighth-graders who go through it, they’re actually gifted for that summer with this thing called “Camp Us.” We partner with (University of Hawaii at) Manoa, and also UH-Hilo. To give them a three-day campus experience, where they stay at the dorms. …

We bring in speakers to talk about setting goals. That’s all part of the We Are Ready concept.

And then we also have this thing called “CEO,” which is Career Exploration Opportunities. That one is actually going to be launching third quarter.

Q: For the first time?

A: No, every quarter we have a different focus. … Our focus is going to be fiscal management. We talk about different career opportunities, and making good choices, when it comes to money. … It’s a good way for us to partner with outside corporations and groups.

One year we had this thing, like a little mini “Shark Tank” (the TV show about entrepreneurs making pitches to celebrity investors). … (Investment counseling firm) KPMG, who is a really good sponsor, came to help us, and they created this mini “Shark Tank,” where the kids presented and the KPMG employees selected the winner …

Fourth quarter is “Life Service Action” — that’s our community-service focus. … It culminates in April. We have a Global Youth Service Day. These “yabbies” (youth action boards), they come together maybe three or four times a year. … They have a youth summit. …

This Christmas, in the break, they’re going to talk about what service project they want to do in April.

Q: What makes After-School All-Stars distinct from other youth enrichment programs?

A: We have about 13 full-time staff, management and one (site coordinator) for each school. We found, programmatically, it’s best.

When I first started, I was like, “Oh, why do we need someone there the entire day, for eight hours at a school, when our program basically only runs from 2:30 to 5:30?”…

But we found that it’s really vital. Going back to your question, I think that what really makes us stand out from other after-school programs is the integration, and the relationships our program has with the school and with the students and with the parents. …

At some schools they ask us to help at lunch, just going out there, just being other eyes and ears. It’s really great, because they wear the orange shirt, they’re very visible. The kids know them because they’re there every day at lunch.

It’s an outside relationship that’s not a teacher relationship. Another adult, responsible person they can go to that’s not their teacher, who’s hammering them about equations and things like that.