Lake City Club – Youth of the Month – January 2023
January 16, 2023
Gifts of Retirement Assets
January 16, 2023
In a recent conversation with multiple colleagues from around the country, I continued to hear references to the pandemic, Clubs working to rebuild attendance and footprint, and leaders seeking to determine what their Clubs would look like moving forward. This discussion led me to feeling truly grateful for the work and position of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley.
The past year brought continued success for our Clubs and a deepened impact on the kids we serve. Because of our organization’s commitment to success for kids and the generosity of our donor community, I want to share that Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley begins 2023 as a completely deft-free organization. This is going to enable further impact for kids in our region as we move forward. Thank you to our donors, board members, campaign members, and staff for making this all possible.
With that said, I want to share some of the amazing work that our Clubs did this past year.
Primarily, our organization served more than 6,700 total kids in our region in 2022. We are also serving an average of 1,600 kids per day, an increase of more than 22% from this time a year ago. We also opened our Club in Claiborne County in March of 2022 at Soldiers Memorial Middle School and now have a site at Tazewell-New Tazewell Elementary School, serving more than 75 kids per day.
While serving large numbers is great, we know we must make a difference, a meaningful difference in their lives.
Our organization’s educational support efforts are escalating to new levels through our partnership with the United Way of Greater Knoxville and the Tennessee All Corps tutoring program. This small group, intensive academic support is part of the State of Tennessee’s commitment to helping students overcome achievement gaps and COVID learning loss. Club members across our organization receive small group tutoring in reading and math at least 3 times per week in 12-week increments. Programs like this ensured that 94% of the students we served improved their reading proficiency during the last school year.
Our college and career readiness initiative reached more than 1,000 high school students with services designed to help them be fully prepared to enter postsecondary educational opportunities or the workforce upon graduation, with 306 taking part in paid internships and graduation rates of participants approaching 100%.
Finally, our work to improve the mental health of our members has been critical during the past year. Our MESH program is designed to promote positive social and emotional skill development, address Club youth mental health needs, and mitigate the effects of toxic stress and childhood trauma in our members. More than 500 members received direct intervention, small group classes, and one-on-one counseling through this initiative and 100% reported improved mental health following services, while 95% reported improved social and emotional coping skills.
The opportunities and relationships our Clubs provide to kids are essential to them reaching their full potential. The needs are rising for kids and we know we can effectively meet those needs through our strong programs and exceptional staff. We will continue to work to be more effective, more efficient, and to serve more young people in 2023 with better results. I invite you to come visit one of our sites to see the amazing work your support makes possible in this new year. You will leave encouraged and excited about the experience our Club members are having.
