Sports, fitness and recreation

Triple Play
To teach youth how to make healthier choices, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) has teamed up with The Coca-Cola Company and Kraft Foods, Inc. to present Triple Play: A Game Plan for Mind, Body and Soul. This national program takes a holistic approach to educating boys and girls about good nutrition, making physical fitness a daily practice and developing individual strengths and good character. In addition to components for the mind and body, the Triple Play program gets at the soul of the Club experience — the gamesroom. Each Mind, Body and Soul program component can stand alone, yet integrating them allows Club members to reap more powerful, lifelong benefits.

Social Recreation
The gamesroom offers pool, ping pong, bumper pool, foosball, and PlayStations. Competitions and tournaments will be conducted.

A “coffee shop” area will provide teens with a quiet atmosphere for gathering, snacking and sharing each other‘s company. A full service kitchen will provide daily meals.

The gym will be where sports, games and fitness activities will be conducted that will include basketball, indoor soccer, volleyball, aerobics and fitness classes. The fitness center will have weights and aerobic equipment.

The Arts

National Fine Arts Exhibit Program
This year-round program encourages artistic expression among Club members ages 6-18 through drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, mixed media and sculpture displayed at local and regional exhibits. A panel of distinguished judges selects works of inclusion in the National Fine Arts Exhibit, which is displayed throughout the ensuing year at BGCA events, including the annual National Conference. Each winning artist‘s work is featured in a virtual gallery on BGCA‘s Web sites.

ImageMakers National Photography Contest
This year-round program encourages Club members ages 6-18 to learn and practice black-and-white, color, digital and alternative process photography. ImageMakers has three components: a photography programming resource guide full of fun, creative activity ideas for three skill levels; small grants for Clubs to start or strengthen photography programs; and an annual photography contest that provides local, regional and national recognition. Club members‘ photographs selected at the contest‘s national level are exhibited at the BGCA National Conference and at other events and venues. Winners in the portfolio category receive college scholarships. Each winning artist‘s work is feature in a virtual gallery on the ImageMakers Web site, www.imagemakersbgca.org. The Web site also features resources, tools and fun interactive activities, such as a virtual camera and online photo contests, to further enhance Club members‘ experience with photography.

Digital Arts Suite and Festivals
Club Tech‘s suite of self-directed digital arts courseware consists of Web Tech (Web page design), Design Tech (graphic design), Photo Tech (photo illustration) and Music Tech. Movie Tech contains detailed instructor materials for teaching members to write screenplays and facilitating the hands-on process of filming and editing digital movies.
Once Club members have participated in these programs, they can submit their digital artwork to the annual Digital Arts Festivals competitions. The festivals celebrate Club members‘ creativity in five areas — Web design, graphic design, photo illustration, music composition and movie making — and provide Club members with recognition at the local, regional and national levels. Winning digital artwork is featured on the Digital Arts Festival Web site.

MusicMakers
BGCA, along with NAMM, The International Music Products Association, is proud to announce the release of MusicMakers, a new music education program resource for Clubs. Designed to enhance your interest-based programming, MusicMakers is a flexible program resource for Clubs that includes a helpful guide and four display posters to help you get the word out and generate excitement among Club members.

Recording Studio, D.J. Booth, Dance Floor and Stage

Education and career development

CareerLaunch®
CareerLaunch encourages Club members ages 13-18 to assess their skills and interests, explore careers, make sound educational decisions and prepare to join our nation's ever-changing work force. Club staff or volunteers can use the Career Exploration Quick Reference Guide to work with teens individually or in small groups to build their job-search skills and job readiness.
CareerLaunch Teen Tips is an easy-to-read, pocket-sized booklet for teens full of practical job-hunting advice that comes with an attractive portfolio for storing resumes, job applications and other job-hunting documents. The dynamic CareerLaunch Web site provides Club teens, staff and volunteers with online career exploration and college and job search information and interactive activities. Mentoring and job shadowing opportunities for Club teens and training for Club staff round out the CareerLaunch program, generously sponsored by the Gap Foundation.

CLUBService
CLUBService provides education awards to Club members and alumni ages 17-24 who serve their Clubs and communities. CLUBService recognizes young people's service, helps them access higher education opportunities and encourages them to pursue future careers as Club professionals. CLUBService is made possible through a partnership between Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps).

Junior Staff Career Development
Junior Staff Career Development is a comprehensive, small-group program that assists Club members ages 13-18 in exploring a career in youth or human services, particularly Boys & Girls Club work. Through hands-on experiences with helping others in the Club and community, field trips to other service organizations and one-on-one guidance from Club staff, youth prepare for a future role as a human services professional or volunteer leader in their community.

Money Matters: Make It Count
Money Matters promotes financial responsibility and independence among Club members ages 13-18 by building their basic money management skills. Participants learn how to manage a checking account, budget, save and invest. They also learn about starting small businesses and paying for college. Money Matters features three components. The Teen Personal Finance Guide is a fun, attractive booklet containing practical tips and activities to help teens learn the important skills of balancing a checkbook, creating a budget and saving and investing for college and retirement. The Facilitator's Guide provides Club staff and volunteers with basic financial information and instructions for easy-to-implement small-group activities. The Money Matters Web site, offers teens an engaging online tool for building their money management knowledge and skills through interactive activities, games and tools like a savings and financial aid calculator to plan for college.

Project Learn
Project Learn reinforces and enhances the skills and knowledge young people learn at school during the hours they spend at the Club. This comprehensive program strategy is based on Dr. Reginald Clark's research showing that students do much better in school when they spend their non-school hours engaged in fun, but academically beneficial, activities. Through Project Learn, Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for these high-yield learning activities, which include leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help and tutoring and games like Scrabble that develop young people's cognitive skills. Project Learn also emphasizes parent involvement and collaboration between Club and school professionals as critical factors in creating the best after-school learning environment for Club members ages 13-18. Extensively field-tested and formally evaluated by Columbia University with funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Project Learn has been proven to boost the academic performance of Club members.

Skill Tech
Skill Tech is a basic computer skills program that develops Club members‘ proficiency with word processing, spreadsheet and other productivity software through fun, hands-on, engaging lessons and projects for four age groups.

Skill Tech II: A Club Tech Advanced Skills Program
Skill Tech II is designed to teach advanced, yet practical technology skills to Club members aged 13 to 18. Using animated, interactive tutorials on courseware developed exclusively for Boys & Girls Clubs, as well as hands-on, instructor-led group activities, Skill Tech II introduces members to hardware and networking skills and technology-related career opportunities.

Health and life skills

SMART Moves
(Skills Mastery and Resistance Training)

This nationally acclaimed comprehensive prevention program helps young people resist alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, as well as premature sexual activity. SMART Moves features engaging, interactive, small-group activities that increase participants' peer support, enhance their life skills, build their resiliency and strengthen their leadership skills. This year-round program encourages collaborations among Club staff, youth, parents and representatives from other community organizations. The program's components are: SMART Kids, for ages 6-9; Start SMART, for ages 10-12; Stay SMART, for ages 13-15; and SMART Parents.

SMART Leaders
SMART Leaders is a booster program to SMART Moves. This program keeps teens involved in the SMART Moves program after Stay SMART, reinforces skills and knowledge youth learned in SMART Moves and prepares teens as leaders to help their peers resist using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, and postpone sexual activity.

F.A.N. Club
F.A.N. (Family Advocacy Network) Club is a parent involvement program designed to empower parents, strengthen families, and prevent youth from using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, and from engaging in early sexual activity.

SMART Girls
SMART Girls is a small-group health, fitness, prevention/education and self-esteem enhancement program designed to meet the developmental needs of girls 13-17. Through dynamic sessions, highly participatory activities, field trips and mentoring opportunities with adult women, Club girls explore their own and societal attitudes and values as they build skills for eating right, staying physically fit, getting good health care and developing positive relationships with peers and adults.

Passport to Manhood
Passport to Manhood promotes and teaches responsibility in Club boys ages 13-14. Passport to Manhood consists of 14 sessions, each of which concentrates on a specific aspect of manhood through highly interactive activities. Each Club participant receives his own “passport” to underscore the notion that he is on a personal journey of maturation and growth. Passport to Manhood represents a targeted effort to engage young boys in discussions activities that reinforce positive behavior. Passport to Manhood is an excellent complement to SMART Girls.

Date SMART
Date SMART is a supplement to SMART Girls and Passport to Manhood, and an exciting new resource for Club members ages 13 to 18. Through fun and easy-to-use sessions, members learn how to achieve mutually supportive relationships free of violence and abuse. The program also encourages youth to become community advocates for relationships that promote equality and respect while combating the attitudes and behaviors that lead to dating, sexual and domestic violence.

TRIPLE PLAY
Healthy Habits
Empowering youth to eat right is a generation-changing, life-enhancing program goal, and Triple Play's nutrition component, called Healthy Habits, covers the power of choice, calories, vitamins and minerals, the food pyramid and appropriate portion size.

Character and leadership development

Youth of the Year
Youth of the Year is BGCA's premier youth recognition program for Club members. All members can benefit from participation in this program, which promotes and celebrates service to Club, community and family; academic performance; moral character; life goals; and poise and public speaking ability. The Youth of the Year program is most effective when used as a year-round tool for fostering young people‘s character, personal growth and leadership qualities. Local Clubs recognize members ages 14-18 who were Youths of the Month and select a Youth of the Year, who then participates in state competition. State winners, who each receive $1,000 scholarships, participate in regional competitions. Five regional winners each receive an engraved plaque and a $10,000 scholarship and compete on the national level. The National Youth of the Year receives an additional $15,000 scholarship and is installed by the President of the United States. Reader's Digest Foundation has sponsored the Youth of the Year program for 60 years.

Keystone Clubs
Keystoning is the Boys & Girls Club Movement's most dynamic teen program. Keystone Clubs are chartered leadership and service clubs for boys and girls ages 14-18. Keystoners elect officers and implement activities in six areas: service to Club and community, character and leadership development, education and career exploration, unity, free enterprise and social recreation. Keystone Club members and their advisors can be nominated to steering committees that organize regional and national Keystone Conferences attended by thousands of Keystoners each year. Keystone Club Awards are bestowed annually on Keystone Clubs that implement programs and activities that best promote the Keystoning principles. Each year, Keystoners develop a National Keystone Project. The combined action of hundreds of local Keystone Clubs results in a service project with a national scope. Taco Bell Foundation sponsors the national Keystone Club program as part of the multi-year teen initiative, a strategic partnership between the foundation and BGCA that equips Clubs with the tools and resources to create a positive place for teens as well as for kids.