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Nancy Morris introduced Ron as he requested, “Please welcome Ron Brown”. Ron explained that the Boys & Girls Club has been around for 40 years. The first support from Rotary came from the Winnipeg -Downtown club. Through the support of Rotary and other fund sources the B&G Club is able to support - C.S.I. Summer Learning, a 19-passenger bus (Rotary Logo on the side of it), day to day activities of the B&G Club. If Ron is ever in a panic situation looking for funding, he knows that he can call on Rotary to help. B&G Club actually started off as a boys club. In 1900 in St. John N.B. the local business men were looking for a way to get the local boys off the streets and away from their businesses. They were disturbing the commercial traffic. The B&G Club is now International with clubs in Canada, U.S.A., and globally beyond. The B&G Club of America is a huge organization. The major funding supporters are the NBA, NFL and MLB. They have Denzel Washington and Jennifer Lopez as spokespersons. In Winnipeg we have….Ron Brown! In 1976 the Aberdeen Club and Freight House Clubs were the first B&G Clubs in Winnipeg. There are now 11 sites in Winnipeg. The clubs are in all areas of the city, core, Point Douglas, Carpathia School, Fort Richmond, St. Vital, St. James. The social housing plan in Winnipeg called for it to be placed throughout the city to promote assimilation. They provide after school activities for children 6 to 18 years of age. These children are further broken down into programming for age 6 to 12 and 13 to 18 years of age. There are ~ 4,000 children in the clubs in Winnipeg. The activities are free of charge, the largest focus is on education. The goal is to have all the children graduate from high school and some go on to further their education. A community must approach B&G Club and ask for a club to be organized in a specific area of the city. The goal must be to never start a club that will stop being present in the community. The budget is $4.5 to $5 million/year. Funding is provided by the Province of Manitoba, City of Winnipeg, United Way (3rd largest recipient in program), donations/events. An example of funding source is the line of ‘Paul Newman’s Own’ products. The purchase proceeds from these grocery products go to a head office in Concord N.H. . The company must approach the charity and offer an application for funding. The charity cannot directly apply without that invitation. The B&G Club has funding through this program. The cheque came in $U.S.D. funds, so, added conversion benefit! Organized sports are supported as well as making technology available to the children, computers/wi-fi (some come just for this). There are 120,000 meals and snacks served/year. For some children, this will be their only meal of the day. Winnipeg Harvest makes donations to the program. As mentioned earlier, education received the bulk of the funding in the program. Education accounts for 60 to 65% of the money spent in the B&G Club. The C.S.I. summer program uses the bulk of that funding. C.S.I. stands for Community School Investigators. It is a 5-week summer program that has had 1000 children enrolled since its inception in 2005. C.S.I. is for grades 1 – 6, and the child must be identified as a child most at risk of learning skills being lost during the summer. If a child attains 85% attendance in C.S.I. over 6 years ($500/year), they could have a $3000 bursary available to them for post-secondary studies after graduation from High School. The B&G Club annual budget has $1.4 million allotted to C.S.I.. The first cohort is just now reaching the point in their education that they will start to draw on the bursary. Why develop a B&G Club? The answer is simple, ‘youth at risk’, they need to be busy. In some communities, the program runs 7 days a week. Programming is never run against a school day. There are 4,000 to 4,500 children enrolled in the clubs. This accounts for up to 40 different languages spoken. B&G Club kids have come back as volunteers and staff. There is a young man that has just now entered his first year of medical studies that was a B&G Club member. He was originally from Somalia, living with a single mother and no assets when first arriving here. This is a success story where a totally dependent individual is being turned into a tax payer (high end tax bracket!). Two short stories - Red Lobster- A ‘girls’ night out’ event. A staff member takes 5 or 6 girls, aged 12 to 14 years of age out to dinner. While looking at the menu, one girl appears to be uncomfortable to the staff member. She is taken aside and asked what is wrong. She advises that she has never been to a restaurant where someone is serving her at a table. She doesn’t know how to act or what to do. The staff member tells the child to just do what she does. After the main is served, the manager comes over because he has noticed the shirt that the staff member is wearing, crested with B&G Club. The girls are gifted the dessert as well as the entire meal by the Red Lobster manager. Ron was sure to call that manager and advise him regarding what a wonderful thing he had done.
- Tuxedo Shell- On an early morning (6:30am) at the Safeway Shell in Tuxedo, Ron was filling his car and went inside to pay. There was only one employee working and he was the only customer present. The young man working there asked Ron if he worked for B&G Club? Ron was wearing his crested B&G Club jacket. -Ron answered ‘yes’, then he was asked if he had anything to do with Carpathia School B&G Club? – Yes , he is the C.E.O. The young man said “then you are the boss”. Ron was advised that the teller’s brother had been getting into trouble with skipping school and disrespecting his mother a lot. They got him into the B&G Club at Carpathia School. His life has been turned around. The teller started to come around from behind the counter – Ron didn’t know what to expect. Then his arms went wide open and he body hugged Ron in appreciation. His parting words to Ron were to tell the staff where he works how important the work is that you all do.
Ron never expected to be doing this job at this point in his life. Most of us have been fortunate with our life experiences. Some of these kids really need a little “leg up”. Q/A 1. Jeff Kulikowsky asked what the staffing numbers are in Winnipeg.
A. In the 11 clubs there are 40 full time staff. ~ 60 part time activity staff and an additional ~1000 volunteers. These volunteers may be doing a practicum or a retired person. In C.S.I. they hire education students as well as a principle for each school and have high school aged mentors. There were ~200 T4’s completed last year. 2. Nancy Morris advised that the Charleswood Rotary has supported the Westgrove C.S.I. since it started in 2007.
A. The vision for C.S.I. came out of the Winnipeg (downtown) Rotary Club. The program was initiated in 2005. The Westgrove C.S.I. started in 2010. Pembina Trails S.D. has taken it over and renamed the program ‘Inspire’. The C.S.I. program is the most comprehensive summer learning program in Canada. 3. Ed Thompson asked how big of an issue is bullying?
A. It is a big issue but is programmed out of the clubs as much as possible. There are behavior expectations placed on the children. Training of staff is very important as well. A proper ratio of children to staff must also be attained. The ‘Trump’ effect appears to be real. They are seeing more cases of people marginalizing others and believing that it is OK because they see it on TV and in the news. 4. Glenda Werbowski asked what the ratio is in the B&G Club regarding boys and girls?
A. 65% Boys/35% Girls or 6/4 ratio. There is specific programming for girls. The biggest is sports. Muslim girls especially, getting past traditional cultural barriers. Acting Sarg Darvin Jasper thanked Ron for his excellent presentation. Darvin also mentioned that Susan Brown is very involved with Harvest and the Community Gardens. |
