Boys & Girls Club Blog

While there were many hardships in 2021, the Club chose to look at the positive and we had a lot to celebrate! We’ve been working hard to do whatever it takes to serve our mission to improve the lives of children and families.

We’ve expanded our after-school programming into South Park Middle School and began our Quest Program to focus on the tween population in grades 3rd-6th at the Club.

We started offering Club programming during students’ lunchtime and after-school time at Oshkosh West and North High School. An additional staff person was added so that we could expand our Be Great program at Oshkosh North High School into Oshkosh West High School as well. This allows us to serve 60+ teens onsite at these high schools!

We opened a new year-round after-school care/summer site at Omro Elementary School. We purchased two more vans to bus more children to the Club from area elementary and middle schools, including the newly added route from Oaklawn Elementary School. This is amazing as it allows us to transport 94 kids after school to the Club!

Our Academic Coordinator revamped our STEM programming this year by adding weekly themes to enhance members’ interest in STEM and to encourage children to find their niche. She also started traveling to bring Club STEM programming to our after-school care sites.

Our Big Futures Mentoring program partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters kicked off this year, allowing us to utilize the best of both organizations and serve more than ever. Our middle school mentoring program will go from 30 to 70 tweens.

We hired a full-time Director of Social & Emotional Wellness to increase our mental health programming and have someone on the floor day-to-day with our members to help them navigate challenges and train our staff.

We had the second year of being able to serve more youth by having an additional summer site at Peace Lutheran.

We increased the number of teens in our Drivers Education program. 30/32 teens got their license last year!

Our Basic Needs Program did wonderful things for both kids and families this year. 150 showers and 250 loads of laundry were done at the Club. We gave out over 300 basic needs items, over 200 Club scholarships, adopted out a record of 215 children through our Adopt a Family Christmas program, not to mention provided breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner, field trips, academic support, kept Club members active outside and in our gym space, and adapted together to serve our children and families in the best way possible. If it sounds like a lot, it was, and we are very grateful and proud to be able to do so many things for our community!

We are now looking toward the future and our expansion of the Club. We’ve taken down 12 houses on Monroe Street in preparation. We have been working with Habitat for Humanity to salvage building materials for reuse. In addition, the Oshkosh Police Department has been able to use the houses for training purposes. We are extremely excited for these next steps for the Club and what it means for kids and families in our community!

It seems too easy to focus on the negative side of this last year. It has brought additional hardship and uncertainty to many. It makes us feel extra grateful for what we have been able to accomplish together. Thank you to our Oshkosh community, friends of the Club and our staff for helping us serve our mission to improve the lives of children and families every single day! We are hopeful that 2022 will be another year of celebrations.

Sincerely,

Tracy Ogden