After a shift working the food bar at Gold’s Gym Hollywood, Marleny Navarro was walking around the neighborhood when she spotted the Boys & Girls Club of Hollywood. That day, almost 20 years ago, she went in looking for a place to send her oldest child, Brian, now 28, during the summers while she worked.
"The summer camp was only $50 per child every week, which is not bad, so I felt so blessed," she said. "I wouldn’t be able to pay a babysitter because they charge a lot just for one kid." Since then, the club has played a big role in Navarro’s children’s' lives. All three of Brian’s younger siblings were involved with the club and the youngest two, now 12 and 8, are still enrolled.
With roots dating to 1860, the Boys & Girls Club organization is focused on helping youth, especially those from disenfranchised and underserved communities, graduate high school and set themselves up for successful futures. Today, there are over 4,300 clubs across the country providing educational assistance, youth development programs and mentorship to almost four million children. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many clubs have had to drastically revise their operations to meet strict safety guidelines while serving their communities. For many clubs, their members have never needed them as much as they do now.
"COVID has really laid to bare the inequities and inequalities embedded into our society," said Melba Culpepper, Chief Executive Officer at the Boys & Girls Club of Hollywood (BGCH). "Those kids and families that were already struggling are really underwater now."
Navarro’s family is feeling the effects of BGCH’s revised operations first-hand. Her youngest two children went to the club every day after school and were enrolled in summer camp each year before the pandemic. In mid-March, when stay-at-home orders went into effect and Los Angeles County Schools shut down in-person learning, the gym where Navarro works temporarily closed its doors. BGCH also had to halt all of its programs. Navarro’s 12 and 8-year-old were stuck at home going to class on Zoom. They begged their mother to go back to the club.
"Sometimes I just had to tell them get in the car, let’s go to the club," she said. "We would just drive by and I would say, 'See the club is closed, it’s not going to open yet.'"
When BGCH called Navarro to tell her they were opening back up with limited capacity in June, she didn’t hesitate to enroll her kids for the summer. But as fall approached, it became clear that BGCH would have to continue with an emaciated number of students for the start of the new school year. Gold’s Gym was still shut down and Navarro told the club they could put her kids on the waitlist.
"I knew there were people who needed more help than us because I wasn’t working," she said. "I told them if they needed to give my kids' spots to others it was fine because there are parents that have to work and need the club more."
Navarro recognized what many BGCH families seek most from the club: basic affordable childcare. That need is especially prevalent amid a pandemic when many BGCH parents are essential workers. At BGCH, it costs $30 a year for a child to have access to everything offered in the after-school program, which includes homework help and activities such as sports, coding and arts and crafts. Summer camp is just $30 per week.
And BGCH places a strong emphasis on education—especially with elementary school students. In Los Angeles County, 41% of third graders read at grade level and 33% meet the third-grade standard in math. Latinx and African American students score disproportionately low on Los Angeles' education index. Seventy-seven percent of students at BGCH are Latinx and ten percent are African American.
"Many of our kids are Latinx and many of the parents don’t speak English and are not able to help [their kids] with homework and academics," Culpepper said. "They rely heavily on this particular club to provide those services."
For Navarro, education was one of the main reasons the club played such an important role in her family’s life. "I used to work eight hours at the gym so after school, I didn’t have time to come back home and help [my kids] with homework," she said. And when her kids did come to her with homework questions, she struggled to help them. She remembers often telling them to ask their teachers at BGCH for help.
On the East Coast, there is a different kind of need. The Boys & Girls Club of the Capital Area, which is a merger of the Albany and Troy clubs, found that their regular families were hesitant to send their children to in-person programs last spring and summer due to the virus.
"The school district opened small programs," said Tim Doherty, Director of Operations at the Albany Clubhouse, which is a part of the Capital Area club. "If those ever reached capacity, and there was a huge need, we would have been happy to open up the clubhouse. But there wasn’t really that need." What there was a huge need for was meals. From the first week of COVID-19 shut-downs, the club used their commercial kitchen in Troy to prepare and deliver breakfast and lunch to the students' homes. They served 350,000 meals in less than six months.
"We basically pivoted from being a childcare provider to being a food service provider," Doherty said. "That was what people were saying they were struggling to find."
Back in Hollywood, BGCH expanded its educational programming to the summer camp, which is usually centered on recreational activities and games. However, this summer, the club was concerned about the challenges students were facing with online learning. And educational need was how they trimmed their usual 190 to 200 summer students down to the state guideline of 50 maximum.
In early February 2020, they identified 20 students who were suffering the most academically, and brought those kids in for a Saturday program focused on helping them perform at grade level. Those 20 students were the first to get the call offering them a spot in this year’s summer program. Fourteen of them were able to participate. The rest of the 50 kids were those whose parents are essential workers.
"It is heartbreaking to know that there are kids we used to see every day that we know benefit greatly by having the socialization opportunities [at the club]," Culpepper said. "But we just don’t have the space, there is nothing we can do. We are doing the best that we can."
With the new school year underway, New York schools are cleared to open in-person and many have chosen hybrid plans. The Boys & Girls Club of the Capital Area is running a full-day program—8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. On students’ days out of the classroom, they can come into the club and get assistance with online school.
In Hollywood, where schools remain completely virtual, BGCH is also offering full-day programs similar to those in New York—but the number of students is held at 50. For both clubs, the way programs are run look drastically different from years past.
Both clubs keep students in pods of ten with one staff member leading each pod. This means every staff member has to teach every subject and lead every activity with their pod. "Typically, we would have the students rotate from the art room to the game room and so on with each staff member specialized in their specific activity," Doherty said. "Now, they are having to adapt to be the art person, be the music person, be the homework help person."
Rotation through activities is also how BGCH typically runs things and Culpepper said her staff had to adapt as well. "I was teasing [the staff] and said, 'You know that line on your job description that says other duties as assigned—guess what? I am going to enact all of that,'" she said.
And aside from the sports instructor also teaching technology, the staff is essentially acting as nurses and janitors. Culpepper said her staff is monitoring students’ runny noses and coughs, and making sure kids wash their hands every ten minutes. They also wipe down tables and chairs at a near-constant rate.
Amid all the logistical changes, Doherty said financial challenges are still at the forefront. "Getting the price low enough for families to come has been the challenge we are facing," he said. "We aren’t going to break even so how can we can lose money and still be ok as an organization and provide the service that’s needed [is what we are facing]."
The Boys & Girls Clubs receive much of their funding through donations from individuals and businesses. They typically hold multiple fundraising events every year. Amid COVID-19, the clubs’ ability to hold these events is extremely limited. Camron McKinley, the Director of Operations of the Troy Clubhouse, said that is the biggest issue the Capital Area club is encountering with donations. They had to cancel two events.
"When we are able to have an event people still donate, but we just don’t have the same exposure right now," he said. "We are just not out there enough because of COVID." The club was able to hold a golf tournament fundraiser this summer that, according to McKinley, went well in terms of donations.
In Hollywood, BGCH also found that the limited ability to hold in-person events during the pandemic makes raising money more challenging. A big role of the club’s board members is to help with raising donations. BGCH board members Lisa Gannon and Tafiq Akhir said they are struggling to show people the need in the community through virtual methods.
However, BGCH found it was able to help a lot of families with their Corona Care Fund. To raise awareness of the fund, Akhir made a video featuring one of the families the club was helping. Culpepper said it was one of the most successful videos and online campaigns the club has had in terms of donations. "It all speaks to where we are at as a society," she said. "People were trying to figure out how they could help, and some people were in better situations than others and wanted to give in whatever way they could."
The Corona Care Fund came from BGCH’s Corona Care Calls. During the time the club was completely shut down, BGCH was calling all of their families to check in on how they were doing and what they needed help with. They learned early on that many of their families were struggling financially, and they set up the fund to provide help, especially to families that did not receive early stimulus money because many were undocumented.
These calls quickly led to the club becoming, what Culpepper called, a hotline—the place where families went to get information and guidance about food opportunities, medication or testing.
For Navarro, these calls helped with the stress of the pandemic. Both she and her husband weren’t working, and were struggling to pay for food and rent. BGCH’s calls provided her family with emotional support. "It felt like they really cared about me as a person, not like a number," she said. "They were interested in my family, asking if the kids were okay and if they needed anything. I’ve been so blessed to have the Boys & Girls Club."
Comments