History
The first Boys' Club was founded in 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1906, 53 independent Boys' Clubs came together in Boston to form a national organization, the Federated Boys' Clubs. In 1931, the organization renamed itself Boys' Clubs of America, and in 1990, to Boys & Girls Clubs of America. There are currently (2010) over 4,000 autonomous local Clubs, which are affiliates of the national organization. In total these Clubs serve over four million boys and girls. Clubs can be found in all fifty states as well as locations in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and US Military Bases. In total, Boys & Girls Clubs of America employ about 50,000 staff members.
Statistics: Member percentages as of 2010:
- 65% are from minority families
- 5% are 5 years old and under
- 43% are 6–10 years old
- 19% are 11–12 years old
- 21% are 13–15 years old
- 12% are 16–18 years old
- 55% are male
- 45% are female.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked Boys & Girls Clubs of America number one among youth organizations for the 13th consecutive year, and number 12 among all nonprofit organizations. The Boys & Girls Clubs of America is the official charity of Major League Baseball. Denzel Washington, a former Club member, has been the spokesperson for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1993.
Read more about this topic: Boys & Girls Clubs Of America
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)