The black-tie gala on Oct. 25 marking the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula’s golden anniversary is the culmination of 50 years of dreams and dedication by local leaders.
It’s also the third celebration of the clubs’ 50th. Festivities got off to an early start in July when hundreds of people showed up at the Menlo Park branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs for a community party. A second festival was held for Aug. 2 in East Palo Alto. After all, don’t 50 years of hard work and success deserve more than one party?
The following history of the Boys & Girls Clubs was compiled by Chris Canter, spokesman for the clubs.
The early years
The first local club, known as the Herbert Hoover Boys Club, was organized in 1958 by a group led by Menlo Park Rotary Club president Charles Horton.
The club became part of the umbrella organization, The Boys & Girls Clubs of America, founded in 1860. Several women in Hartford, Connecticut, believing that boys who roamed the streets should have a positive alternative, organized that first club.
In 1906, several boys’ clubs decided to affiliate. The Federated Boys Clubs in Boston was formed with 53 organizations. That was the start of a nationwide movement. In 1990, the name was changed to Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
In Menlo Park, shortly after Charles Horton organized the first local Boys Club, the Atherlons, a women’s charitable and social organization, decided to lend a hand. Atherlon members Margo Ritter, Carolyn Miller, the late Janet Rice, and others pitched into raise funds for the club with annual events. Athlerlon benefits at the Menlo Park Recreation Center raised much of the early support money for the Boys’ Club, according to Boys & Girls Clubs’ spokesman Chris Canter.
In those early days, local businessmen would load up their cars with boys to take them to the San Francisco Zoo, ball games and museums. Rotarians helped with their “Dad of the Year” campaign, in which dads each contributed $25 to sponsor a boy in the club.
The first clubhouse
The first Boys Club clubhouse opened in Menlo Park in 1965. “Our budget then was $35,000,” says Ted Tanner, a founding board member and past president of the club who remains a supporter today.
The club continued to grow through the 1970s. The club welcomed Margo Ritter as its first president in 1972. Girls were admitted to the club for the first time in 1977. In 1979 J. Cyril Johnson led a “barn raising” to add more than 3,000 square feet to the Menlo Park clubhouse.
By 1980, the club had more than 300 members and a $100,000 budget. In 1989, the club added a second site in Redwood City, the Mervin G. Morris Clubhouse, named after the Mervyn’s Department Store founder and longtime Atherton resident, who provided a $1 million challenge to build the clubhouse. Mr. Morris remains a supporter and frequent visitor to the club today.
Club executive director
In 1991, Jacqueline Glaster was hired as the club’s executive director and began the club’s transition from just being a safe place for kids after school to an organization with a strong academic program. In 1996, the club merged with the Center for a New Generation, an innovative after-school program started by now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Susan Ford Dorsey and others.
It was also in the mid-1990s that Atherton resident Patrick Goodenough headed a capital campaign that resulted in the renovation and expansion of the clubs’ buildings in Menlo Park and Redwood City, as well as the opening of a third clubhouse — the Moldaw-Zaffaroni Clubhouse in East Palo Alto.
In 2003, thanks to the advocacy of the late Lester Dewitt, Oracle Corporation partnered with the clubs and committed more than $1 million to revamp the academic program. Since that time, Oracle has invested another $1 million in the program. Oracle employees often volunteer at the clubs, says Mr. Canter.
New executive director
In 2005, Peter Fortenbaugh became the Boys & Girls Clubs’ new director. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, Mr. Fortenbaugh’s business background included experience as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in New York City. That year the clubs expanded its Center for a New Generation to the McNair Academy in East Palo Alto.
Last year, the clubs installed the Center for a New Generation at two more schools, and two additional schools in 2008.
Today, there are nine sites — three clubhouses and six school-based programs — located across Menlo Park, Redwood City and East Palo Alto, says Mr. Canter. Programs focus on academics, science and technology, social education and life skills, physical fitness, athletics, and the arts.
In the past year, more than 4,000 children ages 6 to 18 have taken part in the club’s programs. An average of 885 youth attend one of the club’s daily.
“Our strategy is to create a community of learners in partnership with schools and families,” says Mr. Fortenbaugh. “We still have a lot of work to do. Currently 80 percent of students in area schools perform below grade level and nearly 70 percent of youth do not graduate from high school. These numbers are not acceptable. We want all our youth to have the opportunity to succeed.”
Looking forward, he says, with the community’s continued support and partnership, there is nothing the clubs and, in turn, the young people that we reach, cannot accomplish.”
