San Leandro Boys & Girls Club
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Mission Statement
The mission of San Leandro Boys & Girls Club is to inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. The Club’s vision is to provide youth agency with their own lives, providing them a sense of confidence, competence and power, having their voices heard. We provide opportunities through programs, activities, and interpersonal relationships that engage them in discovering their potential, exploring new opportunities that stretch their minds and open them to academic and life paths they may not have considered. That vision has included the development of new skill training areas beginning with culinary cooking classes for teens provided by Tykia Clayborne, our new Teen Cafe Coordinator and Kitchen Manager, along with access to learning skills in technology, visual arts, music, music writing, recording and producing, engaging with Maker Space equipment from 3 D printers to laser cutters, to sports and physical equipment and more. The goals of the Club include: 1) providing first and foremost, a safe, nurturing environment conducive to emotional wellness, security and growth; 2) creating developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that are scaffolded as youth matriculate from one age group to another; 3) grounding all aspects of Club programming in social-emotional well-being so that youth can learn both academically and experientially; 4) provide quality, research-based, real-life tested professional development enabling staff to support youth and families with strategies and tools that undergird growth, mentally, physically, emotionally; 5) provide support for staff to learn and grow in their professional and personal lives; 6) institute and revisit when needed administrative and fiscal policies and procedures which ensure sound organizational and fiscal management. The Club offers a comprehensive after school expanded learning program to youth ages 4-18 provided by a highly qualified and trained staff at the appropriate developmental level. Our programs are grounded in social-emotional learning ensuring that youth feel safe and secure, factors that research indicates are necessary for successful acquisition of knowledge and experiences. The Club provides core programming in five areas: Character & Leadership Development, emphasizing interpersonal relationship-building, self-image development and contribution to community; Education & Career Development, teaching basic educational disciplines and technology; Health & Life Skills encouraging goal setting and self-sufficiency; The Arts nurturing creativity, cultural awareness and art appreciation; and, Sports, Fitness & Recreations, developing physical & social skills, stress management and appreciation. Teen Programming includes all of the above as well as Workforce Readiness.
About This Cause
Established in 1947, BGCSL has served over 60,000 different youth with educational, recreational and youth development activities. While our core values and goals have remained the same, the BGCSL has adapted our programming to meet the challenges faced by young people today. BGCSL offers a comprehensive after school expanded learning program daily as well as a summer and holiday (intercession) program. Our motto is when school is out, the Club is in. The Club offers a wide variety of enrichment and academic activities daily, incorporating academics, sports, recreation, gardening, nutrition, learning to cook, arts, music, leadership activities and much more through the lens of developing life skills that will support our youth as they grow, mature and eventually leave us. Skills such as problem-solving, analyzing, teamwork, collaborative work, active listening and much more are practiced through project-based learning. We help youth to understand that they are part of a larger community and, as such, have a responsibility to give back to the community of which they are a part. Youth participate in leadership activities, taking the lead in organizing humanitarian causes for everything from supporting food drives to book drives to raising funds for a local charity. Our current need is to support our Teen Career Readiness Program that empowers teens to explore their interests, develop essential employability skills, and apply their knowledge to real-world work experiences. Key components include: Exploring Interests and Passions: helping teens to discover career paths; Developing Employability Skills: helping teens develop a comprehensive set of employability skills; Real-World Work Experience: Our Best Buy Teen Tech Center and Teen Kitchen and Café Programming offer hands-on experience where teens hone their technical skills or master culinary techniques; Mentorship and Support: Mentors add a depth of background to teens’ career exploration and provide advice about the importance of soft skills – collaborative decision-making, problem solving, active listening, work culture and more – all critical to gaining and maintaining employment. Connecting to Work Opportunities: We connect teens to internships, apprenticeships and job shadowing opportunities. We empower our youth to graduate high school with a life plan that they can implement as young adults, in their careers as well as personal life. The Club has seen exponential growth in the past three years. We completed an $11 million capital campaign to renovate our 1966 Clubhouse into a dedicated Teen Center, completing the renovations through the COVID pandemic and re-opening the Clubhouse in late October 2021. From January 2022 to the present, the Club has expanded its services from where it had been for the past 17 years serving 1,200 youth daily, ages 5-14, at 12 school sites in two public school districts to currently serving 3,500+ youth daily, ages 4 – 14 at 22 school sites in these two districts, adding in age 4 (TK) and expanding the number of kindergarten youth served, all of this requested by San Leandro and San Lorenzo Unified School Districts, our partners for 17+ year. We are on track to serve up to 5,000 youth daily, ages 4-14, by the end of June 2025. At the same time, we reopened the Clubhouse to teens, 14-18, from surrounding communities and now serve 300 teens from 10 different high schools and that number is expected to grow to 700 in the next two to three years. The expansion resulted from increased State funding. The growth necessitated expanding our staff, hiring qualified professionals and providing extensive training which we have accomplished including putting together a highly experienced Leadership Team with a new CFO and Controller to oversight this greatly increased budget. We are now an organization of 300 employees. The Teen Center Programs need the most support in terms of both finances and staffing. And, because we do not have currently any government funding, the Club needs to find sustainable, creative ways to continue to support the work we do with teens. As an organization, we are now better equipped to do so with the experience, expertise and dedication of the staff we now have. The Club continues to collaborate with a wide variety of organizations to ensure that the youth we serve have broad opportunity to grow. These collaborations include: our continued partnership with the San Leandro and San Lorenzo Unified School Districts; Davis Street; Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley, that has provided after school science learning at a number of our sites; TEAM Inc. providing sports analytics to our teens; Microsoft which provided workshops in AI; Best Buy ‘s Geek Squad Academy providing 80 teens a three-day program in 3D modeling and coding; Game OVA providing basketball leagues for our teens; Chase Bank providing financial literacy workshops to our middle school girls; and much more. Lawrence Hall of Science has asked the Club to participate in two proposals to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation engaging our teens in technology and health development projects. One of our former County partners, Joe Hudson, Alameda County Office of Education, former Region IV Coordinator stated that: “The BGCSL stands out as a shining example to others of collaboration and partnerships that maximize our abilities to leverage public and private partnerships to leverage public and private resources to keep kids safe, help working families, promote learning beyond school hours and enhance academic success and the health and wellness of our children, families and communities.”