USA Today Network- Florida
River Weekly

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Lee County (BGCLC) is hosting an outstanding summer enrichment programs for kids ages 6-18 in our community, thanks to grants they received from the Schulze Family Foundation and the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.

The Schulze Family Foundation donated $30,000 towards scholarships, which offered families financial support to allow many young children in our community the ability to attend our summer program. Their generous donation also helped fund the “Summer Brain Gain” curriculum, which is project-based learning activities designed to reduce summer learning loss.

The Bank of America Charitable Foundation granted $30,000 to support BGCLC’s Youth Employment for high school students. Funding also supported educational activities, such as STEM and reading, along with unique learning opportunities, recreation, health and wellness programs, field trips and more.

“The last year has been challenging for all of us, but especially our youth. We wanted to ensure that we delivered quality programs over the summer that allowed our youth to explore new things and above all else, have some fun”, says CEO, Denise Gergley. “This year it was extremely important to us to provide a fun, educational program where our youth could experience new things such as culinary, karate, dance and basketball along with educational programs which included STEM activities, reading and prevention classes.”

Donations and grants such as these are vital to BGCLC’s programing and the community. Every day, one out of four children leave school with no place to go, putting them at risk of being unsupervised, unguided, and unsafe. During the summer, an alarming 3 out of 4 kids lack access to summer learning programs, increasing their risk of learning loss and putting them at a disadvantage before the school year starts. The way a child spends their time after school and during the summer can significantly impact the path they take.

“Without the generosity of these two organizations, we would not have been able to provide our youth with a safe, positive, inclusive place to go this summer, where they were able to learn new things, build relationships and make lifelong memories”, says Julie Todaro, VP of Resource Development.