Editorial: A win for Boys & Girls Clubs is a win for the entire community
This is the first in an occasional series of editorials focusing on people, places and programs that enrich the community and make it a better place to live. Submit suggestions for deserving subjects of future editorials at vop@sbtinfo.com.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Joseph County's win for this year’s Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence is a victory of course for the organization and the young people it serves and hopes to serve.
But it also counts as a win for anyone invested in this community's future.
Its efforts to reach and serve more kids helped the local charity garner the honor that the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County gives every two years. As reported in a recent Tribune story, in the past three years, the clubs grew from serving kids at five sites to 29 sites.
Coming out of the pandemic, with learning loss a major problem affecting so many students, club CEO Jacqueline Kronk said, "We realized we had a lot of work to do.”
Their response, an after-school program called STRIVE, combines a tailored curriculum and tutoring with the help of the Robinson Community Learning Center, Riverbend Math and each of the schools where clubs appear.
The results cited by the Community Foundation are impressive: At the end of STRIVE’s second year, 65% of students in the program advanced one or more grade levels in literacy and 69% advanced one or more grade levels in math.
What's equally impressive is the plan the clubs have to expand from the 3,000 kids who come to its after-school and other programs to 5,000 kids. And then there's the commitment to paying staff a living wage in order to keep talented employees — coaching workers "so they can be the best version of themselves, and then they can pass that along to the kids" is how Kronk puts it. The staff's 92% retention rate is an outgrowth of that philosophy.
Kronk said they're also focused on the 989 kids on the waiting list as well as "the kids we really need to find,'' who aren't even at school.
The Leighton Award, which comes with a fundraising boost, should help in pursuit of the nonprofit's goals. The award carries a $150,000 endowment challenge grant. The resulting $300,000 will be added to the clubs’ endowed fund at the foundation, which generates revenue each year from the interest. The charity will also receive a $25,000 cash award.
Kronk said the win “encourages us to stay hungry and stay humble.”
Given the nonprofit's success in lifting literacy and math proficiency among the kids it currently serves and the thoughtful, creative way it did so, that sounds like a winning combination.
Editorials represent the opinion of the Tribune Editorial Board. Its members are Audience Engagement Editor Alesia I. Redding, Enterprise Editor Cory Havens and Executive Editor Ismail Turay Jr.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Joseph County won Leighton Award for nonprofits
