Boys and Girls Club
Boys and Girls Clubs of America
Be GREAT
BE GREAT is a BGCA program that recognizes the achievements of youth on a daily basis. Youth earn points through community service, modeling compassionate and appropriate behavior, improving grades in school by one letter grade in any class, improving physical fitness, and reaching reading goals. Youth are then able to use their points to buy items from our BE GREAT Store which include smaller physical items to increased media time to becoming a junior staff for the day!
ImageMakers
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.
Triple Play
The goals of Triple Play are simple:
- Increase members’ knowledge of healthy habits, good nutrition and physical fitness
- Increase the number of hours that members participate in physical activities
- Increase members’ ability to engage in healthy relationships
- Increase the number of new Club members and the attendance of existing members.
National Fine Arts Exhibition
This program begins with Youth Programs providing opportunities to our members to create artwork for display in a local exhibit. Up to 37 pieces of art (one per age class/category and one for the Group Project category) are selected from our Club’s local exhibit and sent to the Midwest Regional judging events and exhibits. At each regional judging, 37 pieces of artwork are chosen and sent to BGCA’s National Headquarters for judging and selection for the National Fine Arts Exhibit. Please note that the National Fine Arts Exhibit program is conducted as an exhibit. Members receive recognition in a local exhibit by having their artwork professionally displayed. They receive additional recognition if their work is selected for judging at the regional and national levels. All members whose artwork is submitted for consideration at the national judging receive certificates of merit.
Members who have their artwork selected for the national exhibit receive a fine arts plaque and a letter of congratulations from Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s President Roxanne Spillett.
Youth of the Year & Youth of the Quarter
Boys & Girls Club of America’s premier youth recognition program promotes and celebrates Club members’ service to Club, community and family; academic performance; morale character; life goals; and poise and public speaking ability. This program fosters personal growth and leadership qualities.
Youth are recognized for being Youth of the Year and then participate in Air Force Major Command for a $1500 scholarship and state competitions for a $1000 scholarship. State winners participate in regional competition. Five regional winners each receive a $5,000 scholarship and compete on the national level. The National Youth of the Year receives an additional $10,000 scholarship and is installed by the President of the United States.
Digital Arts Suite and Festivals
Five Club Tech programs are part of combining technology and the arts. The program offers members the opportunity to become not just consumers of art and high tech information, but producers of their own content.
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.
Keystone Club
The Keystone Clubs are chartered small-group leadership and service clubs for boys and girls ages 14-18 years. Keystoners elect officers, plan and implement their own activities in six areas: community service, leadership development, education and career exploration, unity, free enterprise and social recreation.
SMART Girls
SMART Girls is a program to help girls develop healthy attitudes and lifestyles. The program addresses health and social issues that are specific to female Club members. SMART Girls is designed for girls 8 to 12 and 13 to 17 years of age, according to their physiological, mental and emotional needs. The program is intended to help girls make smart decisions at this critical stage in their development.