The Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe has a mission to enable all children to reach their full potential. They achieve this mission by providing out of school educational programs at two locations in South Lake Tahoe, and will be expanding to a third later this year. The Club primarily serves the children of working families but also has a special focus on homeless children or those in foster care. Boys & Girls Club programs include those that focus on academic achievement, recreation, art, STEM, character and leadership development, with a special focus on social and emotional learning. In addition to their internal programs, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe has developed partnerships with several local organizations such as the Tahoe Rim Trail Association and the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science in an effort to further engage the kids in the environment they live in, and the importance of being responsible stewards of natural resources.
However, to the Lake Tahoe community, the Boys & Girls Club is so much more than just an after school program. They provide children with a place to be themselves and to interact with their peers, which has been especially important during these last two years of relative isolation due to the pandemic. More tangibly though, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe is the only organization in the area with the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program, allowing them to provide breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack to any child in the community throughout the summer months while school is not in session, and in partnership with Bread and Broth to provide food for the weekends for children of food insecure families. Additionally, throughout the school year, they offer an afternoon snack and hot supper which is becoming increasingly important with school days starting earlier and earlier.
Over the last two years, “pivot” has been the watchword for the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe. They have had to stay very light on their feet and adapt to a constantly shifting environment with changes in lockdown policies and, more importantly, changes in community need. Within one week of the initial lockdown announcement and school closure in March of 2020, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe had pivoted from their afterschool food program to their “summer” food program, even though summer was still a long way off. Using their summer food program, they began offering free hot supper to families within the community. Additionally, the club pivoted to an online format for their youth programs and engaged in significantly higher outreach to families, particularly at-risk families, in order to maintain contact.
Their second major pivot happened in June of 2020 when they were able to successfully petition to open the club back up to in-person activities with a reduced ratio of kids to staff. Then when fall rolled around and the schools still were not reopened to in-person learning, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe modified their club hours to accommodate the ever-shifting schedules of kids through the 2020-2021 school year. A Spanish speaking club was also opened partway through the school year to ensure the English speaking kids taking part in Tahoe’s beloved Two-Way Immersion Program would have ample opportunity to practice their Spanish.
Providing extended club hours during this time was critical for working families to be able to continue working. From hospital staff to parents transitioning to working from home, and everyone in between, the extended club hours allowed them to focus on work without worrying about their children.
The Caldor Fire in 2021 gave rise to new challenges for the club. They were completing construction on their brand-new state of the art facility and were forced to evacuate, leaving far too much behind. Fortunately, Tahoe was spared thanks to the heroic efforts of fire personnel, but the lasting impact of trauma and lost income for the families in the area has been a challenge to overcome. These stressors compounded on an already stressful year and a half of pandemic, especially for a community that is so heavily reliant on its tourist economy. This is why, after the evacuations were lifted, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe made efforts to help relieve some of that financial burden by giving out over $20,000 in club membership scholarships, donating 60 backpacks for the return to school, providing 50 free Thanksgiving dinners, and 100 Christmas presents to families in need through the end of 2021.
Despite the difficulty these last two years have brought, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe is embarking on exciting times, with a beautiful new state of the art facility to call their home. In 2016, after being informed that their rented facility was needed for a school expansion, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe began the search for a new home. After initial plans fell through or were deemed too costly, the stars aligned, and they were given a section of land adjacent to Al Tahoe Elementary School on which to build their new facility. After a very generous donation of $3 million by the Angel of Tahoe, Lisa Maloff, they were ready to begin the process of drawing up architectural plans and conducting a feasibility study to determine how much additional money they could raise to pay for the construction of their new facility. In the late fall of 2019, they had the results back showing that they could expect to raise another $2 million, which would fall about $1 million short of their final goal of $6 million. Deciding to take a leap of faith, they signed the building contract in February of 2020 so that construction could begin that spring. Little did they know that the entire world was about to change…
The difficult decision was made to push ahead with the project, and it turned out the be the correct decision in every possible way! Within the span of one year, Jude Wood, Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe, managed to raise $2.5 million over Zoom, blowing the predictions of the previous year’s feasibility study out of the water. Now, nearly two years after breaking ground, it is easy to look back and know it was the right decision to proceed, but at the time, with so many unknowns and in the face of rising costs and supply chain issues, each new day brought the decision into question. It is now clear, however, that had they not gone ahead with the building process, the cost increases would have become insurmountable, and they would now be without a home for the club.
Kids are our future, and it is critical that they have every opportunity to succeed and thrive. The Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe gives them that and more. The community recognizes the importance of the club and has shown tremendous support through the process of building the new facility. Most of the $2.5 million that Jude raised came directly from the pockets of generous local community members as opposed to big corporations or foundations and she cannot thank the community enough for their support. Another huge thank you is owed to Lisa Maloff, the Angel of Tahoe, for her generous donation that got the ball rolling in the first place. Additionally, Jude expressed incredible gratitude toward Steve Morales who acted as project manager for the construction of the new facility for free, and Tom Haen whose construction company built the facility as close to cost as possible and even provided a bridge loan to cover the final construction costs so the facility could open.
One of the most exciting things about the new clubhouse is the dedicated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) room it offers. For Jude, the availability of a dedicated STEM room within the facility is about more than just education, it is also about equality and giving kids of all genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds the opportunity to have their passions for science, technology, engineering, and math ignited. The Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe has also partnered with David Wise and the Tahoe STEM Academy, offering use of the STEM room to David’s high school robotics team in exchange for David providing STEM education to club members throughout the week.
At the end of the day, the Boys & Girls Club is a safe place where kids can be themselves, while also learning how to interact with their peers, and forming positive habits that will benefit them long into the future. For families of club members, it is a resource that allows them to be at work to continue earning money to support their families, and a way to know their children have a safe and positive environment where they will receive the support they need from an incredibly dedicated staff. Over the last two years, this has been especially important as the social interaction provided by the club has been invaluable in limiting behavioral issues that many school districts are seeing after students have experienced so much isolation. As resilient as kids can be, isolation absolutely takes its toll, and Jude is proud to have helped to shield many of Tahoe’s youth from its effects.
Despite already serving just under 250 kids, the club has a wait list of about 150 kids who need to be served, who need the supportive environment of the club, and whose families need to be able to go to work. Their ability to serve those kids on the wait list is not being limited by space, but by staffing shortages. Many of their staff have already been priced out of their ability to live in the area due to rent increases and it appears there is no relief in sight. Staffing difficulties aside, the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe is looking forward to the future with their new facility providing new opportunities for kids!
The club is also looking forward to their two biggest fundraisers in the Tahoe Brewfest coming up on August 27th and their Annual Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe Golf Classic on October 16th! If you would like to learn more about the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe, including how to support their mission, visit www.bgclt.org.
