Boys & Girls Club needs donations to stay open

September 9, 2009

By JoAn Bjarko

The Wellington

 

 

About 70 youth in Wellington (Colorado) will have to find another after-school home unless local support for the Boys & Girls Club increases dramatically and immediately.

“I really need support from the Wellington community to keep it open,” said Kathi Wright, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County.

The goal is a dependable $150,000 a year.

This year’s budget for the club is $187,305, which pays for one full-time director, three part-time program coordinators, supplies, use of a van and a share of overall operating costs.

The Wellington club is open Monday through Friday from 2:30 to 7 p.m. for youth ages 6 to 18. The annual membership fee is $5.

Youngsters receive homework help, leadership training, life skills classes, art lessons and recreation opportunities. Motivational programs teach them to avoid alcohol, drugs, tobacco and early sexual experimentation. In partnership with the Food Bank of Larimer County, the club also serves a late afternoon meal.

“The kids feel we’re more of a family than a club,” said Kari Jo Lawrence, extension director in Wellington. “They call the game room the living room.”

“We don’t want the children on the streets,” added Stacia Steadman, program coordinator.

If the club closes, “they’re going to be sitting outside our doors instead of inside,” Lawrence said.

The national nonprofit organization also has clubs in Fort Collins and Loveland. Together, the three locations have an average daily attendance of 325 compared with 221 last year. As youth enrollment has increased, however, funding has decreased.

Wright and her board of directors started their fiscal year on June 1 with a budget of $1.3 million, she said, and so far she has had to cut that budget by 25 percent.

For example, Wright said, recent state budget cuts will result in a loss of $26,000 from two annual grants. “Both were helping with the Wellington club,” she said.

Like many nonprofits in this recession, the Boys & Girls Clubs are seeing a reduction in business donations. The losses are affecting Wellington more than the Fort Collins and Loveland clubs, Wright said, because the latter two have more guaranteed, designated income.

Wright would like to see steady donations from individuals living in the Wellington area. Indications of local support will be an important factor when the board of directors meets Sept. 16, she said, although a decision about closing the Wellington club is unlikely to be made at that time.

Town government provides the Wellington club with a rent-free building in Centennial Park and provides maintenance and utilities, except for telephone service. The town also budgeted $2,000 for the club this year.

An annual golf tournament for the club raised $1,000 this year, and the club recently received $1,000 through the grocery receipt program at Main Street Market.

“That’s the kind of thing we need to see,” Wright said.

People who would like to donate to the Wellington club may call Wright at 223-1709, extension 105, or mail a check to Boys & Girls Clubs, 103 Smokey St., Fort Collins CO 80525. Checks should designate the Wellington extension.

Wright noted that a state law, the Colorado Child Care Contribution Tax Credit, gives donors a 50 percent state tax credit on their contribution. A donation of $1,000, for example, will result in a state tax credit of $500, on top of the donor’s regular federal charitable deduction. This is a good year to use the credit, she said, because it may also be lost as the state copes with revenue shortfalls.

Steadman said club leaders and parents are also attempting to get financial support from out-of-state businesses and foundations.

Art teacher Joni Carroll noted that Wellington does not have many alternative after-school activities that youth commonly find in cities like Loveland and Fort Collins.

The middle school has an after-hours program two days a week for students in sixth through eighth grade. The Filling Station, a religious nonprofit, has programs for teens three days a week.

“These children love coming here,” Carroll said. “It’s a safe place to be.”

Ethan Whitehead, 17, is one teenager who has found a purpose at the club as a volunteer. He rides his bike from Waverly to help the staff set up for the onslaught of children each day.

“This place keeps me from going to Fort Collins every day and hanging out with the wrong people and getting into things that are wrong,” he said. “If this club closes down, I will lose all the little friends that I have made.”

Parent Lisa Smith has three children at the club, including an 18-year-old who volunteers. “The majority of parents will be devastated” if the club closes, she said.

“I know parents that are working three, four additional jobs in order to make ends meet,” Smith said. “How are those parents going to help their kids?”

Smith also noted that the Boys & Girls Club is the only secular after-school facility for that many age groups.

“This club is everything to these kids and to me,” Lawrence said. “The kids don’t want to be home alone.”