The Boys and Girls Clubs of Lanier hosted its annual donor gala Tuesday night where Coach Ken Carter attended as a keynote speaker.
More than five hundred donors, affiliates, and supporters were in attendance Tuesday night as members of the Boys and Girls Club board and administration presented awards and spoke to the future of the organization. As attendees enjoyed dinner, Coach Ken Carter was introduced and amped up the audience with his interactive motivational speaking.
Many know Ken Carter for his tactics to teach his high school basketball team discipline, integrity, and teamwork. In his award-winning film “Coach Carter,” he famously locked his play-off bound team out of the gym and forced them to hit the books, rather than solely count on their athletic ability to rise from a tough inner city life.
Coach Carter said the Boys and Girls Club taught him these values.
“The Boys and Girls Club changed my life,” Carter said. “And you know, that's where I learned who I was. And not only was I able to play sports there, when I learned to read books for pleasure, it changed my life. And the Boys and Girls Club had all those resources available for us.”
Carter said one of the biggest ways the club has impacted communities is through its stability. While home, school and work life can fluctuate and present struggles of their own, Carter says giving the youth somewhere to go where they can be validated is of the utmost importance.
“At the end of my speech tonight, I said not all of us can become famous,” Carter said. “But each and every one of us can become great because greatness is defined by the service that we give to others. And so that's what the Boys and Girls Club have always done, just gave great service.”
The club’s mission statement is to serve kids who need it most, between the ages of five to 18. To accomplish this, the club uses after-school and summer programs. Chief Development Officer Joyce Wilson said that the club's major focus is mitigating post-Covid learning loss.
“We provide tutors four days a week for an hour and a half every day,” Wilson said. “And we really work with all of our school systems, we are currently in three counties serving 7,500 kids and 25 clubs. So we have tutors in every single one of those clubs, helping the kids.”
The club is currently undergoing three capital campaigns to raise money for facility expansions and improvements. The Positive Place club in Gainesville is their first campaign, where they plan to tear down the existing structure and rebuild it into a two-story club. This will allow the high school and middle school kids to have their own space. The club has currently raised $6,950,885 of the $7,555,000 goal.
The second campaign is to add a gymnasium to the Joseph F. Walters Club on Memorial Park Drive. That location currently serves kindergarten through fifth grade. Wilson says constructing additional space will help better serve the Hall County community.
“The kids age out, and there's no place for them to go once they reach middle school,” Wilson said. “And the parents, the kids are very upset about that, and they really need a place for the kids to continue to be able to come. So once we get that gymnasium completed … it will be a place for, you know, more of our physical fitness programs, but also allow us to serve middle school kids.”
The club has currently raised $1,050,000 of the $1,500,000 goal.
The final campaign is to build a new two-story club in Forsyth County. They plan to serve kids between kindergarten and 12th grade. Wilson says the new location will be able to accommodate 300 to 350 children once completed. The club will be named after Tommy and Chantal Bagwell, who were the recipients of this year’s Helping Hands Award. The club has currently raised $6,998,800 of the $8,700,000 goal.
Many businesses and individuals attended the event and were heartened to see the impact their donations have had on local youth. Donor Karen Shockley, a Wellness Coordinator with ProCare RX, said that being involved in the community has always been a cornerstone for them.
“We were really clear when we moved up here, that the success of the community was integral to our success in this community, we need to hire people locally to keep us running, and have a safe environment for our employees,” Shockley said. “That's where our future workforce is going to come from. We hope that some of these kids come back to Gainesville, but also just to support work that makes this an attractive community for people to come and live and work here.”
Many donors see their contribution as an investment in the future. Coach Carter put their sentiment into words with his keynote speech.
“Kids are one-third of our population, but they’re 100% of our future,” Carter said.
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Lanier accepts donations on its website, found at https://www.boysgirlsclubs.com/ways-to-give/donate/.
