Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama seeking to return to Baldwin County

By Jessica Vaughn
Posted 1/28/20

FOLEY - The Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama was once a presence in Baldwin County before withdrawing due to cost and economic downfall. They are hoping to make a return to the area during 2020, …

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Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama seeking to return to Baldwin County

Posted

FOLEY - The Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama was once a presence in Baldwin County before withdrawing due to cost and economic downfall. They are hoping to make a return to the area during 2020, and are looking to start with the Snook Youth Club in Foley. The club was under the umbrella of Boys and Girls Club when they were in the county, and the current board has voted in favor of pursuing the possibility of the merger. Boys and Girls Club has 12 locations in Mobile County, which prompted discussions of the merger.

“Some of our nationwide corporate partners have been calling us and saying there’s no Boys and Girls Club in the Foley area where we have partner locations,” said CEO of Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama Tim Wills. “When customers are making cash register donations those monies aren’t staying in Foley, they’re going to Mobile because it’s the closest Boys and Girls Club. We’re not talking millions of dollars, but we are talking money that’s leaving the Foley community and going to other communities in this region.”

Wills said when you look at donations made by individual donors and corporate partners, roughly $12,000 is leaving Foley annually and going elsewhere, which could instead be going to the Snook Youth Club.

If the merger takes place, the Snook Youth Club will become a Boys and Girls Club, though it would still maintain its focus on the arts while also gaining new resources and programs thanks to the new brand.

“The Snook Youth Club has a lot of focus on the arts, and our goal isn’t to come in and change what they’re doing as far as their core arts program,” Wills said. “That’s still going to be a core piece of what they do every year, but we want to open it up to additional programing that can be supplemented on top of that for kids’ interests.”

Three members of the current board would be invited to join the Boys and Girls Club board to be the voice for the Foley area. No staffing change would take place within the Snook Youth Club, though employees would be required to go through Boys and Girls Club training in order to stay on. The property would also be subject to follow certain guidelines put in place by Boys and Girls Club, such as capacity of children onsite and student to teacher ratios. Many of these requirements are already being practiced within the Snook Youth Club, and Director Patrice Tiggs believes this merger would benefit the club and the area.

“I think this will provide additional resources for us,” she said. “A lot of people still think of us as the Boys and Girls Club, and we’ve had many local corporate partners who did fundraisers thinking that money would go to us, but instead it went to the Boys and Girls Club closest.” She stated if Boys and Girls Club came back to the area, she also hoped more technology and sports could be added for children in the area, as well as keeping the art programs going strong.

Wills said once the merger with Snook Youth Club was complete, he also hopes to spread the Boys and Girls Club into feeder pattern schools and offer afterschool programs to the students.

The council showed no opposition to exploring what the merger would mean for the Snook Youth Club, and Wills said the entire process would take around six months to complete. He believes it possible for the Snook Youth Club to become a Boys and Girls Club by next summer.