BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF CHAFFEE COUNTY

Our goals for youth- address positive youth development. Our commitment to Chaffee County is that even during these challenging times, we will provide:
• Increased academic success – help to ensure our members graduate from high school and are post-high school ready to pursue college, trade school, a military commitment or employment.
• Improved good character and citizenship - increased levels of integrity (knowing right from wrong), refusal skills, being engaged in the community.
• Increased healthy lifestyles - making healthy diet and food choices as well as a lifelong commitment to fitness.

BGCCC’s overarching goal is to provide a safe, nurturing environment where positive youth development outcomes promote the growth of the individual child. Priority Outcomes include: Increased academic success; Improved good character and citizenship; and Increased healthy lifestyles.

Attending the Club more frequently and over a greater length of time makes young people more likely to achieve positive outcomes. By implementing the Six Key Elements for Positive Youth Development, offering high-yield activities and providing targeted programs, BGCCC provides a powerful Club experience. Boys & Girls Club of America (BGCA) research indicates that frequency of attendance is directly tied to the following positive changes for Club members: 1) Higher levels of community service involvement, 2) Decreased levels of aggression, 3) Increased school effort, 4) Increased academic confidence, and 5) Lower likelihood of starting to carry a weapon, smoke marijuana or be sexually active.

BGCCC implements research-based, youth development programs for young people in our rural mountain communities. Youth arrive after school, eat a healthy snack, and participate in supervised activities in the following categories: Education and Career Development, Character and Leadership Development, Health and Life Skills, Sports, Fitness & Recreation, and the Arts. Each category incorporates multiple programs with curricula developed and shared among Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

BGCCC has an executive director who has been in the movement for 31 years, the board of directors is hard working and sets policy, as well as ensures the overall success of the organization. Staff are dedicated youth development professionals. BGCCC has strived to have 10 months operating revenue in the bank and has been putting aside funds to purchase a building over the last 4 years and in 2020 launched a capital campaign, in the middle of a world wide pandemic.

BGCCC feels confident that even in this hard economic environment with the triad of good leadership, a strong development team including the board and other volunteers and caring adult professionals to run the daily operations, that the organization is well poised for meeting the goals set by the board fiscally and the goals set by the staff programmatically. BGCCC is proud that individual giving exceeds 40% of expected revenue each year.

The role of the Board of Directors in advancing the mission of the organization is to be proactive and strategic. As the organization continues to grow, the Board’s role has expanded to include key issues related to Board effectiveness. The Boys and Girls Club of America (BGCA) Standards of Operational Effectiveness (SOE), serves as a guide to develop a succession plan for Board leadership; continue to ensure Board diversity; and utilize standard BGCA definitions in programming and reporting. The BGCCC Board has been instrumental in leading successful special event fundraisers, increasing revenue by 50% over the past 4 years. Additionally, 100% of Board members make an annual financial contribution to the organization.

The BGCCC Board of Directors has been the recipient of the Silver Eagle Award several times at the BGCA Southwest Leadership Conference. The BGCA Silver Eagle Award celebrates key performance indicators, including board size, 100% board give, meeting attendance and overall volunteer hours, scoring in the top 10% of all boards in the southwest region.

BGCCC is very proud of all of our members including Athena Kintgen, of the Salida Boys & Girls Club, was recently selected as the 2019 Colorado Boys & Girls Club Youth of the Year. Kintgen is the first ever Boys & Girls Club winner from Chaffee County. “As a young person who wants to do more, I feel like the world is at my fingertips. I suppose in my case, it really is”, a reference to her sign language skills. Athena has suffered hearing loss, diagnosed when she was in elementary school. Athena’s Colorado state win earned her a $5,000 academic scholarship from Boys & Girls Clubs of America. At the Boys & Girls Clubs Southwest Regional Conference in Dallas in June, Athena was selected Southwest Regional Conference Youth of the Year, competing with youth from Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming and Montana and garnering a $40,000 academic scholarship and regional recognition.

BGCCC’s “inSTEMaccess” program participation (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) has quadrupled in past years and branched out to include Wonders of Science (science-based activities & experiments, including rocketry, chemistry, robotics); Minecraft EDU (math, science, art, history, & music, as well as digital citizenship activities); Arduino (open-source electronics program to design interactive projects); and KHAN Academy (math tutoring program with hands-on instruction to solve “real world” problems).

Most notably, the Club’s Europa Rover Project flourished in its second year, expanding this unique experience for members and attracting new participants. Middle and high school members resumed work on their rover, which features a new coding model and beacon, allowing the rover to accomplish even more scientific feats. For the past two years, Club members competed in the Great Sand Dunes National Park's robotics challenge. BGCCC's team was the youngest team in the challenge, competing against Colorado universities, including Colorado State University, University of Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines. In 2018, BGCCC’s Robotics team achieved “Best Demonstration of Beacon Navigation” at the NASA Colorado Space Grant Consortium/Colorado Robotics Challenge at Adams State University and Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Targeted outreach programs also grew in 2019 with in-house AmeriCorps staff serving record numbers during the school day and afterschool at the Club. A family Halloween outreach event attracted a record number 398 kids and families in October. Plans are currently underway to provide half-day outreach programming at Buena Vista’s Darren Patterson Christian Academy beginning Fall 2019 to expand BGCCC’s reach, impact, and collaborative partnerships.