The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi is proud to be 1 of 855 organizations across the country being awarded a local grant from the Darden Foundation! The $3,000 grant, a $1,000 each from our local Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Long Horn Steakhouse will enhance our Club members’ post-secondary educational interests, while boosting their college readiness. Thank you for believing in us!
The Boys & Girls Club organizations in Mississippi are at it again. There’s laughter, playing, fist pumps and more; and that’s from the adults! We’re in training.
The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, a non-profit focusing on character building and teaching life lessons to disadvantaged youth using baseball and softball-themed programs, visited Jackson recently to work with BGC staff on their Badges for Baseball program. CRSF staff members, Flynn Burch and Rosina Ciattei, first facilitated an open discussion about all aspects of Mississippi Boys & Girls Clubs Badges for Baseball programs and how we can best improve.
Following the discussion we hit the gym. Pausing a few moments for some words of support and encouragement from Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, CRSF partner Playworks, a non-profit that focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of children through increased physical activity and play, got the group up and moving. With each game, participants were encouraged to think of the life skills that each game teaches children.
Badges for Baseball, developed in collaboration with the Department of Justice, puts cops and kids together to play and learn, building relationships between law enforcement and at-risk youth. Using the baseball and softball hook to grab the kids’ attention, they reach them with character development curriculum both on and off the field with adult coaches and mentors.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi kids and staff can’t wait to go to the upcoming CRSF Badges for Baseball camp in Aberdeen, MD, May 28 – June 1!!!
Community spirit filled the air and tradition was rooted deeply as the Good Friday planting in the new Club Organix garden on the grounds of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi Capitol Unit got underway. BGCCM, the King Edward/Hilton Gardens Inn, and community members joined to make the garden a reality. Experts and novices, parents and children, chefs – friends of King Edward/Hilton Gardens Inn Chef Nick Wallace – all showed up to help.
The Club Organix garden came to fruition when BGCCM Volunteer Coordinator Joni Wright met with Chef Wallace hoping to find a mentor for the kids at the Boys and Girls Clubs to do cooking demonstrations, while teaching them about healthy lifestyles and nutrition. Chef Wallace took it further, suggesting a farm to table initiative.
“I want to show the kids that you don’t have to go and get canned food full of sodium,” says Chef Wallace. “Club Organix is really pushing for a healthier lifestyle. We want to set a high standard here in Mississippi that a lot of people are going to want to follow. My passion is to develop younger chefs to discover their own talents in the same way I was taught.”
A few fruit trees and bushes, vegetables and herbs, donated by Green Oak Nursery, were enthusiastically planted into soil tilled and prepared by Chef Wallace, his father Jessie Donald, uncle Tommy Donald, and friend Kendrick Smith.
“The BGCCM and the King Edward/Hilton Garden Inn, two long-standing landmarks in the city of Jackson,” explains Billy Redd, Pres./CEO of the BGCCM, “are partnering to create this organic garden in line with BGCCM healthy lifestyles initiatives – teaching kids to exercise and eat right. Now, we’re taking an athletic field behind our Club on Capitol Street where our kids are already getting their exercise and we’re adding an organic garden. King Edward/Hilton Garden Inn Chef Nick Wallace, one of the top chefs in Mississippi, will be teaching the them how to grow, cook and eat healthful food.” Thanks to Chef Wallace, the children at BGCCM will not only know what foods are better for them to eat, they’ll learn how to grow them!
For two weeks in 2010, the Jackson Community Design Center in Jackson, Mississippi did a day camp with teens from the Capitol Unit Boys and Girls Club. This is their story.
Jackson is Art: A Design Camp
National spokespersons and Club alumni Denzel Washington and Jennifer Lopez understand how Boys & Girls Clubs create great futures for children and teens every day. They are joined by 19 prominent Club alumni to send a message to America.
Bottom Row: (L to R.) Martin Sheen, John Paul DeJoria, Edward James Olmos, Cuba Gooding Jr., Courtney B. Vance
2nd Row: (L. to R.) Mona Dixon (BGCA’s 2010 National Youth of the Year), Misty Copeland
3rd Row: (L. to R.) Sugar Ray Leonard, General Wesley Clark, Kerry Washington, Ne-Yo, Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lopez, Mario Lopez, Smokey Robinson, Ashanti, Shaun White, Lucille O’Neal
Back Left: Magic Johnson and Back Right: CC Sabathia, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Shaquille O’Neal
Thanks to the talent and hard work of Lil’ Amber, 15, of the Canton Unit, Deon, 16, of the Capitol Unit, and Courtney, 13, and Ariana, 12, both of the Sykes Unit, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi has three entries in the Blue Door Decorating Duel and a chance to win a $5,000 gift card to Lowes for their Clubs. The Blue Door Decorating Duel, a challenge to illustrate why Great Futures begin at their Club, is presented by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America as part of National BGC Week, April 7-13th. Up to seven (7) finalists will be posted on greatfutures.org/doorcontest on March 18, 2013. Clubs and the general public will be invited to vote for their favorite entry until 5 p.m. PST, April 9, 2013. The winner will be notified on or before Friday, April 12, 2013. Let’s wish our artists luck!
Representatives of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi, a member of the Mississippi Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, participates in a Legislative Breakfast at the Mississippi State Capitol Tuesday to thank Legislators for their support of Boys & Girls Clubs throughout the state.
Thanks to Jackson Prep for donating a portion of the proceeds from their garage sale last Saturday to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi. We appreciate their support!
Laughter and screams of delight spill out of the gym, filling the halls of the BGCCM Capitol Unit as children with wide eyes and huge smiles watch the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Ambassadors of Laughter perform. The clowns visited the Club to treat the children to a show and let them know that the circus is coming to town! Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson March 21-24. Before leaving the Capitol Unit, the Ambassadors of Laughter made sure each child had the most important thing every clown needs – a big red nose!
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central of Mississippi is open after school until 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, the prime time for juvenile crime.
The multi-purpose room at the BGCCM Capitol unit is full. Four Hinds County Deputy Sheriffs and three convicts stand before middle and high school-aged youth. The room is quiet as Capt. Joe Daughtry begins speaking. He explains the three different colored jumpsuits on display and how the color the prisoner is wearing will let people know something about the crime he or she committed.
Capt. Daughtry pulls out a body bag as he talks in general terms about how a person might end up in that bag. Some eyes are wide in the room. Some brows are furrowed. The young faces are intense. The room remains quiet.
Members of the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department and county prisoners share the hard truth about prison life with BGCCM Capitol Unit youth, now getting a lesson in understanding the consequences of one’s action.
One by one, each convict gets up to tell their story – how a one bad decision concerning drugs will keep him away from his family for 15 years – and it’s killing him; how they were once just like the kids they’re talking to; how terrible prison life is, from living conditions to the food…
Sgt. Richard Byrd stands to talk. A big man, the kids look up at him as he tells them, “You’re our future.” He encourages them, saying they can be anything they want to be, but they need an education.
” If we don’t take a stand and be a roll model for the younger kids,” says Sgt. Byrd after the event, “the world is gone.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, “violent crimes by juveniles occur most frequently in the hours immediately following the close of school on school days.” http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/offenders/qa03301.asp?qaDate=2008
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About Boys & Girls Clubs
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi (BGCCM) is a non-profit organization that inspires and enables young people to become successful, responsible citizens. Youth benefit from our trained, caring, professional staff and volunteers who help young people take control of their lives, envision productive futures and reach their goals. Continue reading …