Those who couldn’t get to Boys & Girls Club might find one in their Tarrant neighborhood
Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County is taking its programs on the road in an effort to reach kids who have been most deeply affected by the pandemic.
Beginning this summer, the organization will send four buses outfitted as mobile clubhouses to neighborhoods across Tarrant County. They’re designed to bring the organization’s programs to students who can’t get to its brick-and-mortar centers, said Daphne Barlow Stigliano, the organization’s CEO.
Although the program was borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stigliano said she expects the need for it will continue long after the pandemic has ended.
“It’s going to take a long time for kids to rebound and recover from those academic gaps that have been created,” Stigliano said.
The organization hasn’t mapped the routes for the mobile clubhouses, Stigliano said. It is still seeking partner groups that can offer space for the clubhouses to set up. The group aims to bring fun learning opportunities to kids in underserved parts of the county, she said. Boys & Girls Club staffers will also serve meals during those visits, she said.
Helping students recover from the social and emotional effects of the pandemic is a major part of the project, Stigliano said. Many students, especially those who have been in virtual learning all year, feel isolated. She’s noticed that many of the younger children who have come back to the organization’s brick-and-mortar clubhouses have lost social skills like sharing and working together. The mobile clubhouses will give kids a chance to interact with other children and rebuild those social skills, she said.
COVID pandemic provided inspiration for mobile clubhouses
John Rosales, senior director for Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County, said the organization has been using its fleet of vans to bring mobile services to kids in areas it couldn’t reach for several months. A few months into the pandemic, the organization began to use its vans to take food into neighborhoods around the county.
Teams of staffers served meals, talked with kids about how they were doing in school and offered arts and crafts programs. If there was space, they also led sports and fitness activities, he said. It was an idea that had been in the back of the organization’s leaders’ minds for quite a while, he said. But when the pandemic struck, it became a more urgent priority.
The mobile clubhouses will allow the organization to expand on those programs, he said. Some of the new trucks include mobile music studios where kids can play and record songs. Kids will also be able to participate in STEM-related programs like coding and robotics, he said.
One of the organization’s main goals is to help kids build positive relationships with adults. Every program at each of its clubs is designed with that goal in mind, he said. The mobile clubhouses will help the organization bring those programs and that relationship building to kids in neighborhoods the organization couldn’t reach before, he said.
The mobile clubhouses also help the organization build relationships with parents and organizations already at work in those neighborhoods, Stigliano said. Boys & Girls Club has a strong brand and good connections in areas around its brick-and-mortar clubhouses, she said. But families in areas the organization doesn’t serve may not know about the services it offers, she said, and Boys & Girls Club hasn’t had a chance to build connections with churches, neighborhood organizations and other groups that could be good partners.
“This will get us into communities where we don’t have that reputation yet,” she said.
Disclosure: The Sid W. Richardson Foundation is one of several organizations funding the Boys & Girls Clubs’ mobile clubhouse project. The foundation also funds the work of education writer Silas Allen.
