The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities Gala Event

October 17th was our annual Gala for the Kids Event.  Staff had a great time presenting all of the items for the silent auction.  Stay tuned for details on how much was raised.

Fall Flag Football League

This fall, we had a very successful flag football league with all of the Saint Paul Boys & Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities.  Members had the chance to compete and the opportunity to travel to other sites. We ended the season at the West Side Boys & Girls Club for a dinner, awards and trophy presentation.  Great fun had by all that participated!

Cadet Soccer Leagues

Members of the Cadet Soccer League are off to a great start.   Members meet twice a week to practice skill development and compete in our in-house soccer league.

Teen Members of the Week and Month!

Our September Teens of the Week and Month are Uriel Reyes and Darian Gordon.

Uriel has been a member of the club for many years, but as he is know 13 years old, he has become more active in participating in programs at our club.  He always comes into club and makes sure he is getting his homework done and is willing to help in any way we may need him to at club.

Darian Gordon has been chosen as our Teen Member of the Month.  Darian has been coming to the club for the past three years and has shown tremendous growth in his participation in programs like Career Launch, keystone, Career Exploration and volunteerism in the club.

Keep up the outstanding work and showing great leadership!

Our Flag Football League

Under the direct supervision of Rudy Lugo, our Athletic Director and our volunteer coaches our Boys and Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities Saint Paul Branches are having a great time competing against one another in our Flag Football League sponsored by Buffalo Wild Wings!  Keep up the great work!

Our West Side Homework and Literacy Incentive Plan

In our staff meetings, we as a team here at the West Side Boys and Girls Club have decided to try a new model for the school year.  We began this in the summer and streamlined this to fit into our school year curriculum.

All members will travel through the club in age appropriate groups.  All members will have time in the games room and the gym after they have reported to the STARS Room or Education Center to complete their homework and or a literacy station in their program areas.  We are trying to help support our families and community schools by making sure our members not just complete homework, but practice vital academic skills.  We have worked hard to make sure that are literacy stations are not made up of worksheets, but engaging hands-on activities that are fun for our members.

Once members have completed their homework and/or a literacy station, they can earn a sticker that then will be turned into club bucks.  Members are able to put their sticker up on the board next to their name which helps us build the sense of belonging and community in our program areas.  Once a month, members can purchase prizes that are showcased in our display case as a reward for working hard.

In the month of September, we have had 151 members enrolled in this program!

STARS 64 members Total Earned in September: $378

Education Room 61 members Total Earned in September: $249

Teen Center 26 members Total Earned in September: $84

Together as a club, we have earned $711 in one month by completing homework, volunteering and literacy stations.

We are pleased to report that members are really enjoying this new recognition system!  Below is a photo of our club cash rewards display case!

STARS Reading Program

Our STARS members have been very busy in the STARS Room working on the curriculum created for our new West Side Boys & Girls Club Reading Program.  One of the major building blocks of future success starts with the ability to read.  This is why we have made it our mission to make sure that all members can read by the third grade. 

 Our new reading program has been broken down in to four categories for each quarter and focuses solely on preparing members to be emergent readers. Quarter One we will focus primarily on alphabet recognition (both lowercase and uppercase) for our kindergartner's.  For 1st through 3rd grade our focus will be sight word recognition.  We have differentiated these for each grade level.  It has been proven that these are 220 sight words that are used in everything we read.  In knowing this, we believe that this is important for all emerging readers to not be able to sound these out, but know them from sight.  After members have had literacy station practice in sight word recognition they will be assessed on their progress twice a quarter.

In Quarter Two, our focus then turns to phonics.  Teaching members how to sound out the words and work on the sounds each letters make is another big milestone on the road to reading.  Members will practice reading sentences that include new words as well as the sight words they have learned last quarter.  Their abilities will be assessed at the beginning of the quarter and then at the end of the quarter to see how members improve. 

When we begin Quarter Three, our focus will then focus on Reading and Reading Comprehension.  Member will practice reading by using the building blocks we learned in our past quarter on phonics and then slowly moving into differentiated reading curriculum appropriate for each grade level.  Members will then be assessed at the beginning and the end of the quarter to measure their success.

By Quarter Four, our focus will be on comprehension and then switch into reading fluency. Members will be assessed at the beginning and at the end of the quarter to measure their success.

Our hope is to assess all member, but will begin with 25 selected members.  Through this process we should be able to identify our non-readers, emergent readers, and beginning/intermediate readers and have data to support what is working and what might need more practice.

We plan to have parent nights to share these findings with our parents as well as highlight and recognize their achievements throughout the year.