An award-winning after-school program that teaches non-competitive martial arts techniques to Middle School kids in Maine, is within a whisker of getting a corporate grant that will insure its future. The Riverview Foundation's AIM program, which stands for Access to Inspiration and Motivation, was among 5,000 applicants across the country that entered a competition sponsored by the social networking site Facebook, and cleaning products company Clorox. Five $10,000 grants will be awarded and the competition is now in its final stages. The five winners will be decided in an online poll conducted through Facebook, and the AIM program is in now in seventh place.

About 30 students gather in the gym after school on Thursday at Brunswick Junior High to practice a unique martial art called Universal Movement. The session begins with breathing exercises, says instructor Maureen Higgins. "We start with a meditation so the kids can sort of 'empty their cup' if you will, which means that they calm themselves down, de-stress from their day, and then we are able to teach them more knowledge. And we also teach them focus and discipline and physical fitness."

"The kids just excel with it -- they love the structure, they love the discipline," says Hester Mishkin is executive director at the Riverview Foundation, a non-profit based in Topsham, Maine, that provides educational and community programs for youths and adults.

Riverview started the AIM program 10 years ago, funded by the state through its share of tobacco-settlement money awarded in the late 90s. It costs the kids little or no money to participate, depending on their family's income.

It is, says Mishkin, a way of introducing kids to a blend of peaceful non-competitive form of martials called Universal Movement.
"It's really a blend of hard and soft movements," she says. "It's also a nature-based martial art, meaning that it's influenced and rooted in nature."

Mishkin says around 150 kids are enrolled in the program at three middle schools across southern and mid-coast Maine, and she has no trouble finding recruits, who come in all shapes and sizes.

"I just started this year, and it's a very useful program -- it helps me with all my problems, like anger and all that stuff," says 8th grader Patrick Green. Green says the AIM program has helped him get his anger issue under control. "I used to, like, get so angry I could break lockers and stuff, but AIM's taught me to control my anger, to let go of my day and whatever troubles I've been having. It helps me with homework, all that stuff."

James Donnell, a slightly-built 12-year-old, says the techniques he learned helped him cope with school bullies without getting into fights.

James Donnell: "Before I started here I was being shoved into the wall, and they started fights with me that I couldn't defend myself, so I really knew that this program was good for me."
Tom Porter: "Has it helped you cope better with people who might bully you?"
James Donnell: "Yes, because in the hallways, normally they would just come up and punch me in the face, but I do a block and then I just push them on their way, and they go their way and I go my way.

But Universal Movement is not just about fending off bullies. After their warmup, the kids practice breakfalls -- a way of falling to the ground that minimizes damage to the head and spine.

It's a technique that's just as much help should you slip on the ice or come off your bike, as it is in a playground tussle, says 13-year-old Jamie Dufresne. "I have learned to protect myself if I fall. The other day actually I fell over and I did a breakfall. We were outside at the back of the school."

Another important aspect, says program director Hester Mishkin, is that without activities like this, many kids would find themselves alone and unsupervised at home, as many households today are either single parent homes, or have two working parents, neither of whom will be at home when school finishes.

"Being unsupervised for long periods of time when they're 11, 12 years old, is really not a great situation," Mishkin says. "They're too old to be in a daycare, but they're too young to really be responsible for what their doing all the time."

More than a quarter of the program's $40,000 budget has been slashed in the past year, prompting proportionate cuts in the scale of the program, says Mishkin. To win the Clorox-Facebook $10,000 grant would pretty much get AIM back on track, she adds, and enable another 25 or so kids to participate.

She's amazed that out of 5,000 applications, this was the only one from New England selected by the judges to be in the final pool of 50. And she's been even more amazed by AIM's success in the online voting competition since then.

"We were sort of a dark horse in a sense that we're a much smaller state -- the top runners are large states with a bigger population. But we, amazingly, really, against staggering odds, pulled through to 17th place, and then 12th place, and then after the New Year we were in the top ten, and we have been holding seventh place for about a week now."

And that's two places short of securing $10,000 dollars. With the competition ending on Sunday night, it's going to be a nail-biting weekend, even for the relaxation experts at the Riverview Foundation.

For more details on the program and the competition, go to www.voteformainekids.org