Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha
The Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha was founded in 1992 for the main purpose of offering programs and activities for the youth of the Wilson Heights Neighborhood in Kenosha. The original budget was approximately $150,000 and the Club served 198 members. After the mergers with the Lincoln Neighborhood Center in 2000 and the Christian Youth Council in 2001, along with 8 afterschool sites, the Club has grown to over 5,650 members in 2009 with an operating budget of 2 million dollars and reaching children throughout Kenosha.
Vision Statement of the Future
The Boys & Girls Club is a youth guidance organization dedicated to promoting health, social, educational, vocational, cultural, character and leadership development. We help youth improve their lives by building skills, values and self esteem in order to prevent potential gang involvement and alcohol and other drug abuse.
Mission Statement
“To inspire, enable and provide resources to all young people of Greater Kenosha to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.”
Agency Goals
The purpose of the Boys & Girls Club is the health, social, educational, vocational and character development of youth. We are concerned with all youth where there is a need, but are primarily concerned with disadvantaged youth. This not only means the economically disadvantaged, but socially, educationally and physically disadvantaged as well. It is concerned with emotional behavior, attitude and guidance of youth through wholesome, constructive activities in health, physical, educational, social, vocational and small group programs under professionally trained staff.
History
The Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha was founded June of 1992. Our first location was a drop in site in the Wilson Heights neighborhood. The Club initially rented the space from the Memorial United Methodist Church. However, in December of 1992 the Boys & Girls Club Board of Directors was able to purchase the church and create a permanent home for BGCK at 3712 50th Street.
In 1998, the Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha began expanding programs and opened four after school sites at Durkee, Bain, Roosevelt and Frank Elementary Schools. On January 1, 2000, the Club established the programs of Lincoln Neighborhood Community Center. This included Lincoln Middle and Elementary Schools.
Four additional after school sites were added in September of 2000. They were funded through a grant by the Kenosha Unified School District 21st Century Learning Center. The new sites included McKinley Middle and Elementary School, Jefferson Elementary School, the Kenosha School of Language (KSOL) in collaboration with the Spanish Center. In 2004, Bain Elementary and KSOL merged together to form EBSOLA (Edward Bain School of Language). In 2008, Durkee and Lincoln Elementary merged into the Brass Community School.
During our 17 years of service to the youth of Kenosha, membership in Boys & Girls Club/CYC Sports programs has risen from modest beginnings to over 5,650 participants enrolled. The 2001 merger of Boys & Girls Club and CYC Sports certainly impacted this growth and created an all-encompassing network of services to youth. The addition of youth sports and a federally funded youth employment program (WIA) was combined with the proven, effective Boys & Girls Club system.