BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS GET GRANT TO BEEF UP FITNESS PROGRAMS

The Tallahassee Democrat
October 6, 2004
BYLINE: By Russell Nichols

Consider the first 10 years of existence for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Big Bend as warm-up drills. Its bank accounts were sore from overuse. It had to consolidate programs, and debt was often too heavy to even think about expanding.

But today, that's all changed, and it's safe to say the club has worked out the kinks.Last week, the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Big Bend learned that it was receiving a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, making it the second million-dollar-plus grant in a matter of months.

The program, which is offered after school and during the summer, provides sports, recreation, music and arts-and-crafts programs. In Tallahassee, there are three sites: the Bethel Family Life Center on Bronough Street, and the Faith Christian Family Center and the Boys & Girls Clubs, both on Laura Lee Avenue.

Over the summer, the agency was awarded a $2.3 million 21st Century Learning Center Grant by the state Department of Education. The latest grant is specifically for fitness instruction.

Buddy Streit, president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Big Bend, said staff is planning to purchase heart monitors, wall-climbing systems and exercise equipment.

The grant also will fund Project PLAY, or Physical Activity in the Lives of All Youth, which will initiate community-based programs based on exercise and health. Project PLAY will be implemented in the Franklin, Leon and Jefferson county clubs.

"There's so much talk about physical fitness and obesity and diabetes," Streit said. "Our schools often don't have the time and resources to do what needs to be done."

With the money, he said, they also will purchase the Project SPARK curriculum for physical education. There will be a full-time P.E. coordinator in every club and the curriculum will be geared toward physical fitness. The curriculum is important, Streit says, because workloads and wages bind some parents.

The new programs serve kids "whose parents can't take them to soccer and buy full baseball uniforms and pay for tae kwon do," Streit said.

Linda Butler has been involved with the clubs for 2½ years. Her two sons, Ricky, 11, and Trey, 7, ride the shuttle to the clubs after school. She looked for an after-school center, and the Boys & Girls clubs provided programs she wanted for her sons.
But the clubs were not always on the right track.
Local business leaders started the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Big Bend more than a decade ago. They opened the first center at the Orange Avenue Apartments in January 1993. But, with piles of debt weighing them down, they struggled to stay afloat.
Four years ago, organizers found themselves $350,000 in debt, and had a limited staff that jeopardized a needed expansion of programs.

Butler remembers in 2001 when she first got her children involved. The programs were better than other after-school options, but her issue was the location.
"Actually I was getting ready to pull them out," she said.

But she stuck it out, and now Ricky is taking piano lessons, she said, and her sons will be on the basketball teams set to form within the next year.

"Since they moved and reorganized the staff, they've improved," Butler said. "They've broadened the scope of what they do. They've just beefed up a lot of the programs."
Streit was instrumental in the turnaround and now the agency has a budget of about $4 million. There are now 13 clubs serving three counties and about 2,500 kids.

"It's grown 10 times and we're serving 10 times as many kids," Streit said. "We're talking about a group of kids who need to be healthy and need support to understand individual fitness."

This summer's grant money pays for the program Leon STARS - Students Thinking, Achieving, and Reaching Success. It's a collaborative effort between the club, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, the C.K. Steele-LeRoy Collins Community Charter Middle School and the Faith Family Christian Center.

"We are proud to partner with the Boys & Girls Club of the Big Bend," the Rev. R.B. Holmes Jr., pastor of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, said in a written statement. "The club is on the cutting edge of providing creative and holistic programs that will truly enhance the academic and moral development of young people."