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Volunteers: The Secret Sauce for Mission Advancement
Monica Lombardo • April 6, 2020
“Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.” – Elizabeth Andrew
For Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South, like so many other nonprofit organizations, volunteers are absolutely essential to carrying out our mission. From lending their time and talents to spruce up Camp Riverside each spring in anticipation of the arrival of campers in June, to devoting countless nights and weekends as coaches for our youth sports leagues, to providing afternoon homework help -- volunteers are ingrained into so many aspects of what makes our Clubs a second home for the nearly 2,500 youth we serve each year.
#NationalVolunteerMonth, recognized throughout April, gives us the chance to celebrate the many incredible individuals and groups that help us live out our mission and ensure that every child has the chance to have a great future!
Volunteering is an integral component of the culture of our Clubs, and volunteers play a key role for us at every level of our organization.
We engage passionate individuals who want to give back to their communities in a wide variety of volunteer opportunities. Individual volunteers who offer their time to our Clubs make an immediate and lasting impact on the lives of our members through their service in a wide variety of program areas. Individual volunteers
at our Clubs can offer expertise in a variety of specialty program areas. Our Athletics & Recreation Department, for instance, allows many volunteer coaches and referees to make an impact through organized sports leagues, including floor hockey, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. By sharing their strengths and passions during the sports season, these individuals help us to instill in our members the importance of healthy habits and the values of leadership, determination, and teamwork.
Volunteers with expertise and passion in a certain field provide a wealth of knowledge for our members to learn from. Through our Keystone Keynote Speaker Series, members are exposed to role models and career paths that they may not have known existed through volunteer speakers. From politicians and veterinarians, to Harvard University professors -- we invite a diverse group of leaders to donate their time to inspire ambitious goals in our members. Each speaker tells their own story, including their failures, moments of weakness, loss, and adversity. Then, they lead an interactive activity that encourages critical thinking, team-building, leadership, and self-reflection. Our volunteer speakers inspire our members to strengthen their leadership skills and continue working towards their goals despite whatever circumstances may seem to be standing in their way.
While single-day service is an accessible way for volunteers to make an immediate impact, individuals with special interests in certain program areas often choose to serve in long-term mentor-based
roles at our Clubs in a variety of program areas based on their experience and expertise. Many students from local colleges and universities choose to volunteer with our Clubs in this way. These passionate individuals serve as consistent, positive adult role models for our youth, help contribute to the quality of our programs, and support the well-rounded development of our members within these different program areas. This type of volunteering requires dedication to our mission, and is one of the best ways to remain connected and committed to our members’ personal success over an extended period of time.
According to the National Mentoring Partnership,
at-risk youth who have a mentor are 90% more interested in
becoming a mentor themselves.
In addition to hosting individuals, we also welcome volunteer groups
from corporations and other organizations to enhance our programming and facilities. Our group volunteer opportunities provide a meaningful, productive team-building experience while fulfilling a need at one of our Club or camp locations. Volunteer groups often visit Camp Riverside, the home of our summer camp programs, to complete physical construction or modification of camp infrastructure, beautification and upkeep of our grounds, and other projects to prepare the space for summer. We rely on corporate volunteer groups like The Phia Group, Bank of America, Sensata Technologies, the United Way, and many other partners to help us prepare Camp Riverside for both opening and closure each year.
Beyond seasonal preparation, volunteer groups can also work directly with our members during our regular after school or vacation week program hours. This includes visiting our Clubs, supporting Club events, hosting Club members at their offices, or hosting school supplies or winter outerwear drives. Groups of volunteers are especially helpful when it comes to facilities projects, collection drives, career exploration, and special events.
One of the most inspiring examples of corporate volunteerism is the Sullivan family of Sullivan Tire & Auto Service,
who generously host a holiday celebration at both of our Clubhouses each December. The Holiday Parties for Kids provide our youth, many of whom might not otherwise have access to cheer of the holiday season, the opportunity to share in friendship and fun. In addition to volunteering their time to decorate the Clubs and serve special holiday meals, the Sullivan family and their employees also provide hand-picked presents for every boy and girl to ensure that no child goes without a special holiday gift of their own.
Arguably our most committed and crucial volunteers are those who serve as members of our Board of Directors. These dedicated individuals give their time, talents, and treasure to help advance our mission. Our board members go beyond the call of duty, taking the time out of their busy lives to serve on committees, assist in event planning, fundraise, and make crucial Club decisions. They provide governance and guidance to our senior leadership team, and are charged with leading our organization, especially in challenging times like those we are facing today.
At Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Northeast Regional Leadership Conference last fall, our outstanding board was awarded the Gold Honor Roll EAGLES award
-- the highest level of BGCA board recognition -- for their outstanding work. The League of EAGLES Organizational Recognition Program Gold Honor recognizes organizations that achieve at least 95% board involvement measured by their engagement, fundraising, giving, strategic leadership, performance, and service.
At every level of our organization, volunteers set a positive example for our youth and inspire Club members to become future volunteers, mentors, and leaders themselves. At BGCMS, we are committed to helping youth develop into well-rounded adults by nurturing the whole self. We work to do so by instilling in them a sense of community and a desire to positively contribute to society.
According to Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s National
Youth Outcomes Initiative (NYOI) survey administered
to our Club members in April 2019, 73% of our teens
volunteered at least once in the last year.
Not only does volunteering positively impact our Clubs, but it also makes a real difference for our volunteers themselves as well. Time spent at our Clubs helps both members and volunteers build skills, make new connections, and feel a sense of greater purpose. For volunteers, the rewarding first-hand experience with our youth can help expand perspectives and attitudes about the world around them.
The crucial work that our volunteers help us to do is invaluable to our organization. Volunteers help us in so many ways to create pathways to great futures and carry out the critical work of our mission for the youth who rely on us each and every day!
On May 5th, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South was recognized as “the safest Club in the nation” when we were awarded Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s 2023 Culture of Safety Award at BGCA’s 2023 National Conference in Orlando, Florida. As BGCA’s most coveted and prestigious national safety designation, the Culture of Safety Award is awarded annually to the local Club that best exemplifies an organization-wide commitment to physical and emotional safety. BGCMS was selected from more than 5,000 Clubs nationwide to receive this award. An award ceremony was held during BGCA’s 117th National Conference in Orlando, Florida, which was attended by representatives from thousands of local Boys & Girls Clubs across the United States. During the ceremony, BGCMS President & CEO, Derek Heim, was invited onstage to accept the award and share a few words about the Clubs’ mission and commitment to safety. “Safety is our number one priority,” Heim said. “We practice safety day in and day out. At BGCMS, every individual—from Club members all the way to the Board of Directors—is charged with keeping themselves and others safe.” Our commitment to safety is apparent in every aspect of leadership communication with staff and community members, including email messages, phone calls, and in-person conversations. Parents, staff, and community members can clearly recognize the critical role that safety has in Club strategy, programs, and operations. This award serves as a testament to BGCMS’s exceptional efforts in promoting safety throughout the organization and the broader community. Comprehensive training in child abuse prevention is required for all full-time and part-time staff. All staff are also required to download CrisisGo, an app that sends instant alerts and step-by-step guidelines in the event of an emergency. This year, our Clubs implemented WAVE, a drowning detection and prevention system. WAVE utilizes a comfortable, lightweight, head-band-like device to monitor how long each swimmer's face is fully submerged underwater. If someone submerges beyond the maximum safe allowable time, the WAVE system immediately alerts lifeguards so they can intervene – well before the event can turn dangerous. Throughout the past several years, our Clubs have been instrumental in implementing innovative safety programs and practices in the areas of facility improvement, emergency preparedness, and holistic youth well-being. BGCMS is honored to receive this award in recognition of its comprehensive safety efforts and is committed to continuing its innovative approaches as a community leader in safety.
Celebrating Women's History Month
What does an after school program look like when there is no longer a traditional school day? That’s the question that Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South has been working hard to answer since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced our temporary closure back in mid-March. Our Clubs have continuously looked for new ways to adapt to meet the challenges of this not soon to be forgotten year. In March, our Club leadership quickly sprang into action, pivoting our long running daily Kids Café healthy meals program to a “ Grab & Go ” style weeknight dinner service just two days after first closing our doors, in order to ensure that youth who might not otherwise have consistent access to healthy meals could receive free and nutritious dinners that could be picked up from either our Brockton or Taunton Clubhouse and eaten safely in their own home. Ever since, our Clubs have been adapting swiftly and intentionally to continue serving youth in need, beginning with the launch of our “Club at Home” virtual programming suite which provided 5-10 virtual activities and programs for youth each weekday through the end of the school year in June. As spring turned to summer, our focus turned to safely operating the summer programs at Camp Riverside in Taunton and at Camp Brookside at our Brockton Clubhouse. That meant reducing the daily capacity in camp programs to around 250 youth per day compared to the more than 500 youth served each day in 2019 summer camp programs in order to ensure social distancing could be observed and group sizes limited to no more than 10 youth. We extended the summer camp season at both camps by two weeks, offering full-day programming through Labor Day in response to the delayed start to the 2020-2021 school year. When the school year did finally arrive, our Clubs were ready to spring into action again. On September 21st, we launched full-day Learning Pods programs at both our Brockton and Taunton Clubhouses. The program day begins at 7:30 a.m. and provides youth with a safe and supportive place to do their remote learning while parents and guardians return to work. When the classwork portion of the day concludes, our Clubs revert to their roots -- offering many of the traditional after school enrichment programs and recreational activities which our members have enjoyed through the years. “It’s more important now than ever that youth have a place where they can receive support for their social-emotional needs and for many kids, without in-person school, our Clubs are the only place where they receive that intentional support,” - Samantha Fagundes , Taunton Clubhouse Executive Director With this in mind, our Clubs have made intentional adaptations to ensure programs were poised to meet the evolving needs of members as they returned to the Clubhouse this fall. In developing our programs for this school year we worked harder than ever to ensure that our programs included opportunities for youth to have a voice -- providing enriching hands-on and interactive experiences. In our Learning Pods, youth are divided by grade level into groups of up to 10 students with dedicated staff assigned to each pod. Each Clubhouse is currently serving approximately 60 children per day in Learning Pods -- in addition to another 50 or so youth per Clubhouse who are enrolled in licensed school age child care programs -- and all youth receive breakfast, lunch, and snacks as part of the programming day. In the morning, youth log in to their remote classes and participate in their school’s assigned curriculum from algebra to physical education, all within their pod. After the school day wraps up, our pods participate in rotating supplementary enrichment activities including gym games, computer skill-building, arts and crafts, STEM exploration, and outdoor play. Our Learning Pods provide kids with in-person staff support during their remote learning along with the enrichment and socialization that they would otherwise miss out on by being away from their traditional classroom environment. So far, this model has been a winning formula, giving kids that might otherwise be home alone a chance to thrive in a familiar environment and giving parents peace of mind that their children are safe and supported throughout the day. “ I really love the staff members here and that I’m able to see my friends, ” says Story , a 9-year-old enrolled in the 4th grade Learning Pod at the Taunton Clubhouse. Her friend and classmate Maya , also 9, agrees. “ I think online school is easier here than at home because I’m around 4th graders like me, ” said Maya when asked about the challenges of switching to remote schooling. With the help of support systems like these, students are finding new successes in their online classes, making friends, and getting the space they need to safely play and grow. “Fittingly, the kids here at the Brockton Clubhouse are handling this change like champions... Virtual learning is not easy for anyone but they are doing their best to keep learning and growing.” - Rachel Dawson , Brockton Clubhouse Sr. Program Director In Brockton , in addition to running a full-day Learning Pods program, we are also operating one of the only dedicated in-person teen programs in the city at this time. The daily activity slate kicks off at 2:30 p.m. each weekday with homework help and dedicated study spaces available for teens to pre-book. Elective enrichment programs like songwriting and music production, college prep, and small group mentoring begin around 4:30 p.m. each day. At our Brockton Clubhouse we have also introduced a refreshed version of our “ Money Matters ” financial literacy program which is sponsored by SCU Credit Union . The program teaches our teen members best practices for saving, budgeting, paying for college, and other valuable financial skills they will need as they enter early adulthood. Also in October, we began offering a teen Healthy Relationships 101 peer leaders program aiming to combat dating violence in partnership with Family and Community Resources, Inc. and Cape Verdean Women’s United through grant funding from the Dept. of Public Health. Marisa Nieves , College & Career Access Director at the Brockton Clubhouse, can’t overstate the importance of having a safe place for teens during the coronavirus pandemic, saying: “When our teens returned in late September they hadn’t been in the building since mid-March and they really needed a place to have safe social interactions... Ultimately, it’s about giving them a space where they can grow and feel connected through our programming." For Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South, 2020 has been about adapting our longstanding formula for impact to meet new challenges as they arise, and meeting those challenges head-on with resiliency and compassion for those most impacted by the social and economic effects of this sustained global health crisis. Adaptation has now become second nature, and despite all the challenges the year at hand has presented to our Clubs, we continue to live out their mission in support of the youth who depend on us. “Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and across the Boys & Girls Clubs of America Movement, our rallying cry has been ‘ Whatever it takes to build great futures ’ for Club kids and this year it’s certainly taken more than any of us could have imagined. “I couldn’t be more proud of our organization and especially our frontline program staff for the flexibility and resilience they have shown these past 8 months... They may not realize it but our kids are learning so much just by watching how our staff team -- their mentors -- have risen to the occasion. I know that when we come through this we’ll all be coming away with a renewed sense of purpose and newfound confidence that we stand ready to take on any challenge that comes our way, together. ” - Derek Heim, BGCMS President & CEO One thing is for sure here at Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South... today and every day we will continue to adapt, overcome, and we will continue to do whatever it takes to build great futures .
On July 1, 2019, the Boys & Girls Club of Brockton and the Boys & Girls Club of Taunton officially merged to become Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South after nearly two years of partnership in order to do more for even more kids in Southeastern Massachusetts.
This month we’re celebrating the one year anniversary of our union and taking a pause to reflect on all that we have accomplished in a year that has been anything but ordinary.
At Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South, the safety of our members has always been our highest priority, and now more than ever before during this unprecedented global health crisis, safety is at the forefront of every decision we make.
As we recognize hashtag#NationalWaterSafetyMonth throughout the month of May, we're reflecting on the critical importance of safety and skill in the water, and the longterm developmental benefits for youth of accomplishing the feat of learning to swim. For many of our Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South members, learning how to swim serves as the foundation upon which they'll build the confidence they need to try even more new things as they march towards adolescence and young adulthood.
At the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South, #WomensHistoryMonth gives us the chance to honor our female founders, empower the women who carry out our mission, and embolden the future generation of female leaders within our Clubs
Each February, during #AmericanHeartMonth, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South doubles down on our commitment to educating our boys and girls about the long-term impacts of the choices they make today on their health and vitality in the future. We know the road to heart health begins in childhood and that the habits youth form today are likely to become their habits for life.
Mentors offer a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction – and during #NationalMentoringMonth we are shining a spotlight on the important role that mentoring plays in the positive personal development of our members at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South.
At the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South we're committed at every turn to removing the barriers that stand between youth and the life-changing benefits of Club membership.
Solving the Opportunity Equation:
Affordable + Localized + Informed = Accessible