Boys & Girls Club Blog

September 16, 2026

OSHKOSH, Wis. — The Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh is proud to announce it has once again received a generous grant from the Taco Bell Foundation, continuing a partnership that fuels the Club’s Teen Center and the mentorship, academic and career-readiness programming it provides to teens across Oshkosh.

The Club’s Teen Program serves youth ages 13–18 year-round, providing consistent support during the school year and summer months at little to no cost to families. This year, the program is projected to reach 225 teens through a combination of academic support and tutoring, mentoring, social-emotional learning, basic needs assistance and access to healthy meals and snacks — removing barriers so that financial hardship never stands between a teen and the support they need.

“We’re deeply grateful to the Taco Bell Foundation for once again investing in our teens and believing in their potential,” said Tracy Ogden, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh. “This support allows us to expand mentoring, strengthen academic and career readiness and help more young people build the confidence, skills and relationships they need to create great futures for themselves and our community.”

At the heart of the Teen Center’s offerings is BE GREAT: Graduate, a school-based mentoring program that places trained Graduate & Career Specialists directly inside Oshkosh North and West High Schools and Vel Phillips Middle School. These mentors work one-on-one with students to monitor grades, set weekly and semester goals, connect teens with tutors and teachers and guide them through the transition from middle school to high school and beyond. Over the past three years, 100% of students enrolled in BE GREAT: Graduate have earned their diplomas.

The Teen Center also gives Oshkosh teens hands-on exposure to life after high school. Through the program, teens build career and workforce-readiness skills and have benefitted from resume building, mock interviews, scholarship support, driver’s education, financial literacy education and up-close looks at their options through college and career tours and job-shadowing.

Leadership and youth voice are cultivated through Keystone Club, where teens design and lead their own community service projects, and through the Club’s Youth of the Year program, which spotlights teens’ stories and achievements locally and nationally. On-site mental health and wellness support rounds out the Club’s commitment to teens’ well-being both in and out of the classroom.

This latest grant builds on the Foundation’s support of the Club’s Teen Program in 2025, which helped serve more than 196 teens through afterschool and summer programming — including 62 teens who received one-on-one mentoring through BE GREAT: Graduate. With continued support, the Club expects to grow that reach in the year ahead.

The Taco Bell Foundation has been a longtime champion of Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. Since 1992, the Foundation has granted nearly $60 million to more than 300 Clubs across the country. Through its Community Grants Program, the Taco Bell Foundation partners with more than 500 nonprofit organizations that provide direct services in academic success, mentorship, college and career readiness, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and socio-emotional well-being for youth in the communities Taco Bell serves.