Sponsor a child at the Boys & Girls Club

Kids at the Boys & Girls Club feel like it has changed their lives for the better. Your support is what makes that possible. I'd like to tell you about a 5th grader named Emily, who is one of the children whose life you are changing.

Emily has been coming to the Club every day after school and during the summer ever since kindergarten. She says, "The Club helps me succeed because I get to know kids that are different from me and ones that I wouldn't meet anywhere else. The Club also helps me with my homework so I can do well in school. The staff always make sure to help if I don't understand something. And the Club helps me be active and learn good sportsmanship. When I grow up, I'd love to become the director of a Boys & Girls Club because I like helping other kids at the Club." 

You're helping Emily see the good in other kids from all backgrounds. You're helping her do better in school. You're helping her stay fit and healthy. You're helping her learn to be part of a team. You're helping her see the value, importance, and good feeling you get from helping others. Those are big gifts that you are giving to this little girl. Thank you.  

The Club starts helping kids on the path to success from the earliest ages. As young as six weeks, in fact! The Club has two licensed preschools: the Robert Mayer Child Development Preschool at Golden West College in Huntington Beach and the Learning Center Child Development Preschool in Fountain Valley. Each of our preschools works with infants as young as six weeks old, toddlers, preschoolers, and transitional kindergarteners.

A mom whose child was in our preschool for two years wrote the Club a letter about her experience. Her family benefited from the scholarship program that your support helped provide, so her thanks are not just for the Learning Center, but for you, too.

“I want to thank you for the love and care you have given Romeo while at the Learning Center. His excitement and love for the program shows on his face when I pick him up at the end of the day. With your care, he has grown into a wonderful young man and he is ready to move on to Kindergarten.

He has made such wonderful friends and has developed meaningful relationships with the teachers and assistants at the Learning Center.  I am so blessed by the generous donations that allowed Romeo to attend such a wonderful program. My son will benefit from his experiences at the Learning Center for a lifetime. It would not have been possible without your help.

I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the teachers for their time and caring attention they have given to Romeo. He has made leaps and bounds and is definitely not the shy little guy l left in your care and attention at only 3 years old. Again, many thanks to you and the program!”

Without your support of the scholarship program, kids like Romeo wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn and grow every day in a nationally accredited preschool. He’s prepared for success thanks to you!

Did you know that Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley helps kids of all ages? Most people know that the Club makes a difference for school age kids, but Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley is a little different than most Boys & Girls Clubs in that we operate two licensed preschools for babies as little as six weeks old through preschoolers. Your support makes a difference to families with kids of all ages, from infants through teens.

Take a look at what one of our preschool moms had to say this week: 

"My daughter has been enrolled at the center now since August and although it has been a little under 2 months I wanted to take a few minutes to let you know how much I appreciate the wonderful women who take care of my Khloe on a daily and hourly basis while she is there. As a parent with no alternative but to work, the anxiety and fear of having to let someone other than yourself or trusted family or friend care for your child is no easy task and neither is it to pick a day care center. I know I am not the only parent who goes through this and there are plenty of alternative facilities available and reviewed, trust me I checked them, my husband checked them and my inlaws checked them. When I settled on your facility I was still unsure of how my daughter or I were going to make it through this. I will never get over worrying about her, wondering about what she is doing, missing her or what I am missing out on but I do know that because of the wonderful staff, I can feel more easy while I am working knowing these women are providing geniune love, care and attention for not only my child but all the children. From drop off to pick up my daughter is as happy to see each of the teachers in her classroom as I am to see them. Their knowledge and experience in child development has not only taught me a first time mom quite a few things but I know it's helped my daughter reach a few milestones in the short time she has been here. As it is in any field of work, anyone can be hired to do a job and do it well, but it's when they go beyond as these women do that you appreciate them that much more.  I look forward to my daughter's continued enrollment here with this wonderful staff. PS, your front office staff is awesome too. They are friendly, attentive and genuine."

Your support makes it possible for the Boys & Girls Club to give kids amazing care and give moms and dads peace of mind, all while keeping fees affordable for all families through our sliding scale scholarship program. Thank you for your support!  

When you sponsor a child at the Boys & Girls Club, you're giving them a lot of great advantages to help them do well in school and in life. From getting homework help, to keeping them active and fit, to helping them make new friends and develop important social skills. But that's not all. With your support, the Club is also helping kids meet one of their most basic needs - Hunger.

We believe that hunger is the most important health issue facing kids today at Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley. According to Feeding America, Orange County has the 9th highest number of people struggling with food insecurity among all counties. That’s not just in our state, but in the entire country. 50% of all public school children in Orange County rely on the government’s free and reduced price lunch program to make sure that they get at least one healthy meal every day. But, what about kids out of school time?

One of our staff at the Oak View Branch says of a Club member, “Adam mentioned that there’s no food at home and he’s always telling me he’s hungry. I’ve noticed that it’s hard for him to focus. He just can’t seem to concentrate and he’s tired all the time.”

Kids like Adam are struggling because they are hungry and worried about where their next meal is coming from. That’s why the Club is focusing on nutrition this year as the heart of our health and life skills programming. Here's how your support helps make sure that no child at the Boys & Girls Club goes hungry:

1. You help us serve 35,000 meals each year to hungry kids at our Oak View Branch and Twilight Education Project. 

2. You help us give countless healthy snacks to kids at ALL of our locations so every child has access to fruits, vegetables, and other nutritious foods each day. 

3. You help us send backpacks full of food home with kids in our Twilight Education Project so they won't go hungry over the weekend when they can’t get school lunches.

Not only are we feeding the kids in our community who are most in need, we’re teaching them, too. Kids participate in cooking classes in our teaching kitchens so they know how to prepare healthy meals and snacks at home. And, kids get nutrition classes every month so they know which foods are good for their bodies and will help them grow up strong and healthy.

Please consider making another gift or spreading the word by sharing this project with your friends. By meeting the children's most basic need, you're helping kids be ready to take on all the other challenges in their lives, like that tough math test or the new spelling words that their teacher handed out this week. And, you're helping kids just be kids and have fun playing by taking the grown up worry of whether there is enough to eat off of their minds. Thanks for making that possible! 

I'd like to introduce you to Yeraldine. She's one of the kids at our Oak View Branch, which is free for every child who attends. She was recently named our "Youth of the Year." At the Boys & Girls Club, we have a year-long program to celebrate the outstanding children in our programs. We start with honoring Kids of the Week, moving up to Kids of the Month, and the finally, one special child is named Youth of the Year. Yeraldine was chosen for this honor because she exemplifies all that we hope for each of the kids in our programs. She shows hard work, dedication to the community, kindness, courage, perseverance, teamwork, commitment, and much more. Keep reading to find out all about what makes her so special. 

Yeraldine has big goals and the Club is helping her achieve them. She says, “I want to have the title of being the first person in my family to ever attend a university. I plan to graduate high school with the highest possible grades. After graduation, I plan on attending a university and becoming an accountant, because I enjoy working with numbers. But the most important plan that I hope to accomplish in the future is to be able to make my parents and younger siblings proud of me. I want to show my parents that their hard work always trying to keep our family stable will pay off. For my siblings, I want them to look at me as a role model to show that anything is possible with hard work and determination.” We know she makes her family and her friends at the Club proud of her every day and she’s well on her way to making her dreams of a college education come true. She maintains a 4.0 GPA, and especially appreciates the Education Center at the Club, which she says helps her with her AP math class and honors classes.

Yeraldine is creative and loves to see how other kids create and imagine as well. One of her favorite activities at the Club is making art projects. She says, “Not only are we able to create our own art, but we are able to see what other people create. We can see that someone using the same materials as you can think of and create something completely different. I find this fascinating that everyone can create different things that seem out of this world. All you need is imagination, which it’s impossible not to have.”

Yeraldine is an active volunteer, already making a difference in her community. She helps with monthly neighborhood cleanups and she volunteers at the library helping younger children learn to read. She says, “I want kids to see that reading allows you to live through many different lives and travel to many different universes that you would have never imagined.”

“Thanks to the Club, I have learned not to limit myself, but to say that I am able to do what I put my mind to. The power is within me and I have to show other people that I’m able to change the world.”

You are the one who makes it possible for the Club to be there for Yeraldine and other kids like her. You are helping them feel powerful, limitless, and ready to change the world! And, you're giving them the tools they need to be successful so that those are more than just words and ideas. Thank you. I know you've made a big difference to Yeraldine. I hope you'll continue to support the Club and help us reach more children like Yeraldine.