The Boys & Girls Club Story

Advocating Great Futures for Kids

This past week brought several opportunities to meet with our elected officials to convey the critical role Boys & Girls Clubs play in serving communities with the most needs, and to emphasize the great value of public-private partnerships.

A great day on Capitol Hill recently included meetings with legislators from both sides of the aisle – Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Steven LaTourette (R-OH), Betty McCollum (D-MN) and James McGovern (D-MA) – to discuss the needs of our youth and the tremendous benefits of Boys & Girls Clubs to young people throughout the country.

Congressman McGovern is a proud former Club kid himself, a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Worcester, Mass., Alumni Hall of Fame. His support and dedication were absolutely critical in enabling the Worcester Club to open a new facility and anchor revitalization efforts in that city’s distressed Main South neighborhood. 

Another fantastic visit was with Tim Davis, president and CEO of the Close Up Foundation. Our partnership with Close Up is bringing more than 700 of our military youth to the Capitol. For three days, they’ll tour the inspiring monuments of Washington, D.C., and experience our democracy in action. Providing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like this is what Boys & Girls Clubs are all about.

A few days later, back home in Atlanta, we met with Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. The governor was very receptive to hearing about Clubs’ efforts in helping Georgia youth achieve critical outcomes in education, health and character development. 

It was a privilege to be accompanied on this visit by Joyce Stevens, founding board member of the Walton County Boys & Girls Club in Monroe, Ga., and advocate for our Georgia State Alliance. Since the inception of our nearly 10-year partnership with the state, the alliance has facilitated more than $62 million of support passed through to Georgia Clubs. What’s more, Clubs have leveraged that funding to secure nearly $190 million in matching support from private sources. 

Joining me in our meeting with Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (center) is Kevin McCartney (left) and Brian Manderfield (second from right) of BGCA’s Office of Government Relations, and Joyce Stevens (right) of the Georgia State Alliance.

Public-private partnerships like these enable Clubs to provide critical programs and services to youth, and enrich communities all across the country. Growing these relationships, at every level of government, is an important strategy to ensure our Clubs can create great futures for more and more of America’s kids.

BTW, LOL @ UR VID. Gr8, ^5!

Does "BTW, LOL @ UR VID. Gr8, ^5!" make any sense to you? I know I’d be baffled by it if someone sent it to me. (Translation: By the way, laughing out loud at your video. Great  high 5!) I recently saw a commercial where the entire dialogue was in text lingo with the translation running at the bottom of the screen. And one of the points of the commercial, besides trying to sell me phone service, was that youth today get this new language and their parents don’t. It’s a new way of communicating and it changes daily, so how can we keep up? How do we ensure kids are making smart decisions when it comes to Internet and cell phone safety?

Today’s youth are at home with this language. They are growing up in a digital world and have made it their own. And just as the 50’s spawned the words “cool” and the 60’s “groovy,” youth now are creating their own lingo, partially with the expectation that their parents won’t be able to understand it. It’s part of any youth culture. But this one comes with a big difference, and it’s one that adults need to understand and help young people respond to. And that difference is a vast online world, which is providing youth with opportunities like never before; however it’s also a world in which kids and teens need adult guidance on how to use safely.

I was at a talk about the effects of the Internet and the speaker compared the Internet to an electric guitar. If you’re a good player (in other words, can use the guitar effectively and well) then the electric guitar can take good music and amplify it in a way that allows more people to hear it. However, if you’re a guitar player like me (which means you’re not a guitar player at all), well, let’s just say that it would be a painful experience on your ears and could possibly do some real damage.

The Internet, when young people use it well, can be a great source of learning, entertainment, communication and can open up a young person’s world in ways we never imagined before. However, when used improperly the Internet can cause real damage to others and to the young person themselves.

Dan Rauzi is BGCA's senior director of Technology Programs.

Boys & Girls Clubs takes Internet and media safety seriously. We provide tools and resources to help young people use the Internet to grow, expand opportunities and connect to today’s digital world. To highlight the importance of Internet safety, Boys & Girls Clubs across the country, with the support of our media safety partner Sprint, will be celebrating June Internet Safety Month, with special activities that will help Club members and their communities make good choices in using the Internet.

Kdz 2day nd net sfty. Clbr8 ISM! (Translation: Kids today need Internet safety. Celebrate Internet Safety Month!)

Keeping Kids Safe Online

At our National Conference last month, I talked about the importance of child safety and protection. Ensuring member safety has always been a critical priority for Boys & Girls Clubs. Never more so than today, as concerns about cyber safety require all of us to be even more vigilant. With June being Internet Safety Month, let’s take a minute to consider some of the risks our kids face online – and what we can to do protect them.

For most young people, texting and tweeting with friends is second nature. That’s to be expected for a generation raised in an era of instant information. But some kids are too at ease with online communication, uninformed of the risks that come with it.

Research tells us that 1 of 3 kids has been victimized by cyberbullying. Online privacy is an issue, too. Among teens, 30% report having shared a password with a friend; and 51% say they’ve given out personal information online to a stranger. Figures like this and their potential repercussions are troubling.

To help protect youth from online hazards, BGCA created CyberSafeFutures.org. Videos, downloadable tips and surveys provide parents and guardians with the facts on cyberbullying, social networking, online privacy and mobile phone use. The site helps adults learn basic but essential safety skills. These include guidelines to navigate the Web safely and directions to update privacy settings on computers and other hardware. As a result, parents and caregivers can teach their kids to be safer online, too.

You can check it out today at CyberSafeFutures.org.  And be sure to let me know what you think about it.