Education and Career Development
Character and Leadership Development
Health and Life Skills
 | The Arts
Sports, Fitness, and Recreation

Education and Career Development

Project Learn

Project Learn reinforces and enhances the knowledge and skills young people learn at school through "high-yield" learning activities at the Club and in the home. The program has been formally evaluated by Columbia University and is based on Dr. Reginald Clark's research that shows fun, but intellectually beneficial activities increase academic performance. These activities emphasize collaborations between Club staff, parents, and school personnel and include leisure reading, writing activities, homework help, and games like Scrabble®, which develop cognitive skills. 


Power Hour: Making Minutes Count

When Club kids walk through the door, we understand they often have school assignments that need to be completed. Power Hour’s help and tutoring program is offered daily at all Club sites, and features staff and volunteers on-hand and prepared to provide assistance, tutor, and encourage members to engage themselves in and successfully complete school assignments.

Goals for Graduation
In one-on-one sessions with Club professionals, members are introduced to the concept of academic goals. They set achievable "Know-I-Can" goals, more challenging "Think-I-Can" goals and yearly "Believe-I-Can" goals; and then develop action plans to achieve those goals. The program also provides for positive recognition of members' achievements at each step.

NetSmartz
Kids today are awash in the Internet so the BGCA collaborated with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to develop NetSmartz to teach online safety skills. The program offers engaging multimedia activities and offline interaction with Club professionals in three age-appropriate modules:

• Clicky's Web World (for ages 6 to 7)
• NetSmartz Rules (for ages 8 to 12)
• and I-360 (for ages 13 to 18)

Topics include personal safety, shopping safety, and ethical use of the Internet. To learn more, youth ages 12 and younger can go directly to the NetSmartz Kids website here; while teens, parents, and Club staff can learn about Internet safety at the NetSmartz website here.

CareerLaunch™

CareerLaunch is a career exploration and mentoring program for teens. This program includes the CareerLaunch Web site that gives teens the opportunity to play skills-building games, complete a self-assessment, explore careers, identify training or college requirements, and even seek out financial aid. Club members also take tours of local businesses to get a feel for real-life work experiences.

Junior Staff: Cultivating Tomorrow's Club Professionals Today
Junior Staff gives Club members the opportunity to explore careers in youth or human services, and particularly with the Boys & Girls Club. Young people prepare for future roles by participating in career development activities, discovering the importance of community service, building customer service skills, and completing a Club apprenticeship.

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Character and Leadership Development

Keystone Clubs
Keystone Clubs are chartered small group leadership development clubs for young people ages 14 to 18. The clubs elect officers, choose their own activities, and plan and implement community service projects.  Members also organize and implement fundraisers to give back to their Club and their community.

Torch Clubs
This small-group leadership development program is designed for young people ages 11 to 13. As with Keystone Clubs, Torch Club members elect officers and plan and implement their own activities and community service projects.

Youth of the Year
The National Youth of the Year Program is designed to promote and recognize service to Club and community, academic performance, and contributions to family and spiritual life. Each month, a Youth of the Month is selected at each site. At year-end, they compete for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Northland Youth of the Year. The winner then goes to the state competition, where they have the opportunity to receive a plaque and $1,000 scholarship and move on to the regional competition. Each of the five regional winners receives a $10,000 scholarship and enters the national competition held in Washington, DC. The National Youth of the Year collects an additional $15,000 scholarship (bringing the total to $26,000) and is installed by the President of the United States.

To learn more about our current Youth of the Year, click here.

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Health and Life Skills


SMART Moves

The SMART Moves (Skills Mastery and Resistance Training) prevention/education program addresses problems such as drug and alcohol use and premature sexual activity. The program uses a team approach involving Club staff members, peer leaders, parents, and community representatives. More than emphasizing a simple "Say No" message, the program teaches young people how to say no by:

• Involving them in discussion and role-playing
• Practicing resistance and refusal skills
• Developing assertiveness
• Strengthening decision-making skills
• And analyzing media and peer influence

The ultimate goal of the SMART Moves program is to promote abstinence from substance abuse and adolescent sexual involvement through the practice of responsible behavior.

SMART Girls

An outgrowth of the popular and effective SMART Moves program, SMART Girls is a health, fitness, prevention/education, and self-esteem enhancement program for girls ages 8 to17. The program is designed to encourage healthy attitudes and lifestyles that will enable early adolescent girls to develop to their full potential.

Passport to Manhood

Passport to Manhood promotes and teaches responsibility while reinforcing positive behavior in male Club members. The program engages these young men with small-group sessions, each of which concentrates on a specific aspect of manhood through highly interactive activities. Each participant is issued his own "Passport" to underscore the idea that he is on a journey of maturation and personal growth.

Healthy Habits
Healthy Habits aims to incorporate healthy living and active learning in every aspect of the Club experience. The program emphasizes good nutrition, regular physical activity, and improving overall well-being. It is inspired by the “Mind” component of Triple Play: A Game for the Mind, Body and Soul, which is a dynamic wellness program offered in Clubs that demonstrates how eating right, keeping fit, and forming positive relationships add up to a healthy lifestyle.

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The Arts

ImageMakers: National Photography Program
Being a photographer means expressing what you think, showing what you feel, telling what you know, and sharing what you see. This comprehensive photography program encourages girls and boys to learn to express themselves in creative and innovative ways through photography. ImageMakers provides local, regional, and national recognition through an annual photography contest. Winning photos are displayed nationwide at museums as well as at BGCA's Annual National Conference.

To learn more about the program, visit the gallery and even test your camera skills with the Virtual Camera, click here.

National Fine Arts Exhibit
This competition gives Club members an opportunity to share their artistic talent with the world. The program encourages creativity through a variety of media, and is made up of local, regional, and national exhibits.

Young people are encouraged to create artwork in any of the following categories:

• Monochromatic drawing
• Multicolored drawing
• Pastels
• Water color
• Oil or acrylic
• Print making
• Mixed media,
• Collage and sculpture

Artwork selected through a national competition is displayed at BGCA's annual National Conference and can be viewed online at the National Fine Arts Exhibit Virtual Gallery here. 


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Sports, Fitness, and Recreation

Triple Play: A Game Plan for Mind, Body, and Soul
Triple Play takes a holistic approach to educating boys and girls about good nutrition, making physical fitness a daily practice, and developing individual strengths and good character.

Triple Play’s three key areas of focus are:

•    Mind: Empowering youth to eat right is a generation-changing, life-enhancing program goal, and Triple Play’s nutrition component, called Healthy Habits, covers the power of choice, calories, vitamins and minerals, the food pyramid, and appropriate portion size. 
•    Body: Taking a systematic approach, this component boosts Clubs’ traditional physical activities to a higher level by providing sports and fitness activities for all youth – boys and girls, athletically gifted, and those talented in other areas, children and teens alike.   Daily Fitness Challenges: six challenges give youth at every age the chance to play longer and harder at different games – from jumping rope to basketball and creating games of their own.
•    Soul: This social recreation program teaches proper gamesroom etiquette, good sportsmanship, and encourages healthy social recreation in the Club.

For further information on the Triple Play program, visit the Web site here.

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