Plymouth Boys & Girls Club Kicks off Centennial Celebration
by Garreth J. Lynch, Executive Director
The Boys & Girls Club of Plymouth Kicked off its Centennial Celebration with an Open House event on Wednesday, January 19th. The soiree recognized the founding of the Club in 1911 -- a scant 3 years before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the start of the "great War."
The Centennial celebration began with a review of the historical elements of the period including clothing, music, rumors of war, and the purpose of founding a "Boys Club" in Plymouth just 5 ears after Boys Clubs of America received a national charter from Congress in 1906.
"Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Oh, You Beautiful Doll", "Old Mill Stream", "Mother Machree", and "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" were among the popular tunes written and recorded in 1911. The boys of the fledgling Club would have listened to artists like Billy Murry, the Peerless Quartet, and John McCormack. Ragtime tunes played by Scott Joplin (1909) and recorded on piano rolls were part of ever young boy's experience in 1911. Boys in 1911 would have had Tris Speaker as their baseball hero with the Red Sox. Speaker batted .340 the previous year and the Club was founded and incorporated before the 1911 season.
In the ensuing century, the Plymouth Boys Club became the place that offered safety, security, and the company of caring adult men and women who were concerned with the boys' success in life as an alternative to bad decisions made in leisure (unsupervised) time. Despairing of young boys of all walks of life roaming the streets in the evening hours, a group of forward-thinking men and women established the Club in January 1911. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts approved the formation of the Plymouth Boys Club Corporation in March of that year.
The 12-month long Centennial Celebration will provide the Boys & Girls Club and the greater Plymouth community with an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions in time an money of the many supporters over the past century to keeping the Club and its mission a viable entity in Plymouth.
A centennial is also a time to report to the community on the present position of the Club and its programs since its renaissance in a new facility built in 2003. The new building came about with the support of the Sheehan Foundation and the employees of L. Knife, the Boudreau family (Don & Marian also served for more than a decade as officers of the Board), and Barbara Bobblis of Rockland Trust. Equally responsible for the new building were Coastal Restoration, the Ronald Ferioli Family, Glynn Electric, Marty's GMC and the Alicandro Family, the P.J. O'Hanley Family, the Russell Romboldi Family, and Ed Santos with the Plymouth Industrial Development Commission.
Preliminary plans for 2011 include a centennial activity each month, a major campaign to attract more individual donors, additional recognition of long-term Club volunteers and Board members, activities for Club alumni, and a variety of presentations to supporters and major grant makers. Each month, commemorative plaques will be placed honoring long-term report donors, memorial contributions, and the Jeremiah Milbank National Award for each $10,000 unrestricted contribution in a single year. The accomplishments of past and present member children will be featured.
Among member accomplishments of note, some of the newer programs offerings have been particularly successful. In particular, the GED program students have earned 77 diplomas in the past 4 years. Of the 77, there were 62 that had jobs before exiting the program. Te rest got jobs before the annual follow-up twelve months later. The mentoring program has been extended to 82 students from the original 9 in the spring of 2009. Originally, the 9 high school students, who were likely to drop-out, came to the Club Tuesdays and Thursdays from school. The concept is to have a caring adult repeat the message that graduating is of great importance to the students. After some initial resistance, mentees paid attention and joined the job readiness program. In the fall of 2009, all of them returned to school. This fall, all of them and twelve more returned to school. One tried out for the football team and another was elected to Student Council.
Finally, a centennial celebration is a time of renewal. It is a time to look to the future and to take stock of what has been done in youth development for Greater Plymouth's children and what needs to be done in the coming years. Outreach to families will be given a new emphasis. Greater collaboration with local schools and a greater number of adult mentors are just a few of the goals for 2011.
Great futures start here, at the Boys & Girls Club of Plymouth.
For more information, call us!
reprinted from South Shore Women's Journal
