Welcome to the Boys & Girls Club of Bulloch County, where they provide ongoing programming to support the children and youth of Statesboro.
“We are currently serving 175 elementary schoolers daily, ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade,” says Levi Carpenter, Unit Director, “and for sixth grade through high school, we are right at 39.”
Four areas comprise the main building: an art room, a STEM lab, a game room, and the gym.
Recently in art class, students built bird feeders, positioned them outside, then recorded their observations. Earthquakes have been shaking the STEM lab, as well as water balloons catapults. The game room gives kids the opportunity for social development, conflict resolution, and coping strategies, while flag football, dodgeball, and games like “capture the flag” make the gym a fun and active place to be. The focus of all activities at the Boys & Girls Club is making learning fun with hands-on, real-world experiences.
Summer Brain Gain, a tutoring that is designed with 21st Century skills in mind, is used to prevent the summer slide, which is the loss of knowledge students gained during the previous school year. Certified teachers come to lead hour-long segments. “Summer Brain Gain is focused on bridging the learning gap for the summer.” Carpenter says.
The team is enthusiastic about a new social-emotional learning program called Positive Action, which is possible thanks to a partnership with the Camilla Foundation.
Carpenter explains the power of positive peer interaction, “One of my favorite things they’ve done with social-emotional learning is they spent a week on self-perception and they had the kids look at how they look at themselves.”
Students filled a picture of a head with all of the thoughts they have about who they are then presented to their peers. Carpenter describes the overwhelming support campers showed one another.
“They stood in front of everybody and everybody said, ‘When I see you, I see . . .’ and they gave them that uplifting thing. So then when they turned that head around, they said, ‘When I saw myself, I saw myself as ugly or I didn’t have any friends, and then all of you said I was pretty, you like my hair.’”
The Boys & Girls Club also has a thriving teen program. Mr. Hughston Leaks, Teen Program Director, realizes that programming has to be engaging and fun.
“The big thing about teens, you’ve got to make it where they want to come because they don’t have to.”
They have a computer room where intense Roblox competitions take place, a brand new ping pong table that was just donated, and lots of friendly faces.
Some of these sweet faces who have displayed outstanding qualities adorn the walls of the relaxed teen lounge. When campers earn the title of Kid of the Month, there are longer-term benefits as well.
Leaks says, “So our plan for that is when we have a full year up there, we’re going to take those 12 kids to the Georgia Aquarium and let them do behind the scenes stuff.”
Students started a podcast called Teens and Things as a vehicle to discuss what’s important to them. “Whatever y’all want to talk about, whatever is going on in your lives, let’s do it in a fun way,” Leaks says. The future plan is to take their recording to the next level by editing and publishing their show.
The Boys & Girls Club also brings a farm-to-table element to summer camp. Three students started the garden that sits just outside of the main building.
“We started seeding indoors in January, February and watched that whole growing process.” They have tomatoes, assorted pepper, wildflowers, and marigolds.
In 30 days, they will add carrots and cucumbers to their harvest list. Students will be able to eat what they planted, nurtured, and picked.
The Youth Employment Program has its first two students who will work for the program this summer.
Nahkia Mosby and D’Myiah Tribble have first-hand experience with the programs offered at the Boys & Girls Club. McKenna Moore, Marketing Director, has known the girls for five years.
“They’ve both grown up through the club and have siblings that have grown up through the club, and they are the first to join the Youth Employment Program.” Both girls, rising sophomores at Statesboro High School, are excited to take on a role with more responsibility and pay.
Leaks explains the Student Banking System, which includes a deposit account, a spending account, and a savings account. The goal is to save half of what they earn, and, eventually, have $1000 to $1200 by the end of the summer to put toward an expense such as a car.
In order to be a part of the Youth Employment Program, students must be 14 years of age, and have been prior members of the Boys & Girls Club. The program is designed to support students through important decision making. “They have to complete two programs,” Leaks says.
“One is called Career Launch and the other is called Money Matters. This is going to teach them investments, how to run your bank account, what it takes to do a resume. So it’s not just income in, spend. They need to know how to diversify their money to make their money work for them.”
Camp runs from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM Monday through Friday. For more information about the Boys & Girls Club of Statesboro, please visit https://bgcbulloch.org/.