Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Virginia

With a belief that all young people deserve opportunities for an education and to succeed, Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Virginia is the area's leading provider of youth development programs, promoting positive outcomes in academic success, health & wellbeing, character & leadership, and life & workforce readiness. The organization's six Clubs serve more than 1,500 youth ages 5-18 from charlottesville city and albemarle, buckingham, fluvanna, madison, and orange counties. Each club offers 40 to 60 programs across five core areas: character and leadership development; health and life skills; education, technology, and career development; the arts; and sports, fitness, and recreation. High quality programs, combined with affordability and accessibility, are the club'Clubs's most effective strategies in ensuring that all youth, teens, and communities thrive. The club is open during critical out-of-school-times, including every day after school, all day during the summer, most school breaks, and selected evenings and weekends. To promote access to children who need us most, club membership fees to families are only $15 to $150 annually and represent less than 2% of the organization's revenue. This is especially important in an area where over one fifth of families cannot meet their basic needs, including childcare. Additionally, in fy24, at least 81% of the club'Clubs's registered members qualified for free or reduced-price lunch.fy24 included the first full year of operations at the albemarle campus club, a 52,000 square foot facility located within walking distance of four public schools. In its first year, the club served 590 members, along with hosting over 160 members from the organization's other five Clubs for special programming events including an art show, stem olympics, and career chats. Every school day during non-club hours, the albemarle campus club hosts around 80 students in albemarle county public schools' newcomers program for english language learners. After the newcomers program's first full year at the albemarle campus club, student achievement surpassed state-mandated benchmarks and was among the highest in virginia.fy24 also marked the james river club'Clubs's 10th anniversary. Since opening its doors in 2014, the site has served over 1,200 youth and continues to serve around 90 each day. To commemorate this milestone, the club hosted a community-wide celebration that included special program exhibits. Along with these milestones at the albemarle campus club and james river club, fy24 featured many programmatic highlights. The club expanded its summer literacy leaders program to promote project-based learning that builds skills in reading comprehension, fluency, and writing. Clubs participated in the daily 20/20, where members spent 20 minutes daily reading a book from the club library, and 20 minutes journaling. Members engaged in story building, narrative construction, building a thoughtful argument, and spelling and grammar. Teens from all Clubs participated in career chats, which included an introduction to career paths such as historic preservation, aviation, healthcare, and technical trades. The club'Clubs's annual teen summit focused on financial literacy at the junior achievement finance park in richmond, where members chose careers and made financial decisions based on their salaries. Additionally, club teens selected for youth of the year and junior youth of the year participated in a statewide summit with their peers from other Virginia clubs.throughout fy24, over 250 members participated in the club'Clubs's first full year of a squash program, culminating in the organization's new squash & pickle event. The club'Clubs's first special event supporting its charlottesville and albemarle Clubs since pre-covid in 2019, squash & pickle included a "first serve soiree" followed by squash and pickleball tournaments and a club member showcase. The event focused on providing an inclusive experience for club families and the community while building on donor engagement.with an eye toward increasing staff quality and retention, a key indicator of high program quality and impact, one of the club'Clubs's most important investments has been in providing fair and competitive compensation to all staff. In fy24, the organization's average part-time staff wages met or exceeded the self-sufficiency standard across the club'Clubs's service region and all full-time staff earned at least 90% of the market median. The club is already seeing a positive return on this investment. From 2023 to 2024, overall staff turnover decreased, and full-time staff turnover decreased from 29% to less than 10%.