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:
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)