What do Jennifer Lopez, Denzel Washington and Shaquille O’Neal all have in common? Hint, it has nothing to do with money or fame. They all went to the Boys and Girls Clubs at some point in their lives. And so have countless others. Since its formation in 1860 , thousands of people have been helped, nurtured and influenced after passing through the doors at the Boys and Girls Clubs.
The Boys and Girls Clubs is a program whose mission is to offer kids and teenagers a place to grow and learn. The central idea is to provide an environment, full of opportunity and experience, that is uninfluenced by personal circumstances or where somebody might be from from. Across the United States, over 4,000 Boys and Girls Clubs have been opened with these values in mind.
Chino Valley’s Boys and Girls Club Opened August 8, 2019
The Boys and Girls Club of Chino Valley recently opened its doors to a new Teen Center on August 8th, 2019. The Teen Center (located at 1527 Road 1 East, Chino Valley, AZ 86323) offers a variety of activities for kids to come and enjoy as well as multiple outlets for learning and growth. The Teen Center includes shuffleboard, pool tables, video games, books, and computers.
Nicole Kennedy of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Arizona, spoke about the new Teen Center and what this specific center has to offer.
“We provide a wide variety of activities for the teens. There’s always the time just to play and be a teen and so we’ve got a variety of games like pool and shuffleboard and even video games that are age appropriate. But then also there’s time to do homework and to study. We also have a Film and Media program that helps to teach kids about the different aspects of media.”
As a way to get kids hands on experience with cameras, production equipment and video editing software, The Film and Media Program was created to help kids keep up with the technological improvements and opportunities within the digital world. Rob Milligan, who heads the Media Department at the Chino Valley Teen Center, spoke to what the program involves.
“We’ve got video cameras and computers for them to do editing. A lot of the activities and the projects and the presentations that we have, the kids get to film them and put them together and really showcase these projects.”
The kids wasted no time in creating content. During the summer months the kids directed, filmed and edited a short video that was shown at the ribbon cutting ceremony, during the grand opening of the Teen Center.
Rob Milligan praised the work of the kids. “This summer we made a video, with the teens doing most of the filming. We got to go to the Equine Center with the Yavapai Humane Society and put a video together for that. The teens shot different angles with our cameras and did everything. So it was featuring teens and was also filmed by teens. They put the whole thing together, spent about a week editing it all together, and we presented it to a fairly packed house here at our open house ribbon cutting.”
The Boys and Girls Clubs’ vision is to make success attainable for every young person who comes through their doors and to help teach kids how to develop a solid plan for their own future. Good character, citizenship, and healthy lifestyle choices are just some of the main focal points strongly encouraged by the Boys and Girls Clubs, which is readily apparent in all activities created.
In a day and age where children feel the heavy weight of social pressures to grow up faster, act and look a certain way, or be somebody they’re not, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America offers a solid foundation for kids to develop their own futures and to enjoy being a kid.
For more information on the Boys and Girls Clubs, visit www.bgccaz.org or call (928) 776-8686.
Map to Chino Valley Boys and Girls Club
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