For 14-year-old Journey Williams, the friends and staff she’s met at the Miller Boys and Girls Club in Murray have become "like a second family, almost.”
And now, as she faces the challenge of staying inside, video gatherings with the club are making the pandemic feel more manageable. She logs into the Zoom platform for meetings every weekday, if she can.
“It’s really nice to still see their faces, even though you can’t actually be with them. … It’s still nice to hear their voices,” she said. “Club has helped me in so many ways, I don’t know where I’d be without them, honestly.”
Like all businesses and nonprofits in Utah, Boys and Girls Club locations have had to make major changes and use creativity to support their 6,500 registered youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most kids who participate in the Boys and Girls Club are considered at risk for different issues, and many are from low-income families.
Because they can’t meet in person, the clubs are using Facebook to post activity videos for younger kids. “We have done soccer drills, art projects, cooking, STEM activities, really just as big of a variety of activities as we would if they were on site,” Terra Bueno, director of club services, said in an email.
Older students are keeping in touch with staff using Zoom.
“We have tried to mix it up and do some days where they get on and just get to play games with each other,” Andrea Whitesides, director of the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Club, wrote in an email. “But we have also been able to run some more impactful group discussions and allow for some homework help.”
The clubs have relied on a fundraising campaign, along with pre-pandemic funds, to keep staff employed and support virtual programming, which they use to both interact with kids and train staff.
Funding is also being used to support “grab and go” meal boxes, which contain a week’s worth of meals for families. Food insecurity is one of the major challenges Boys and Girls Clubs members across the country are facing, especially because school closures mean some low-income parents can no longer count on schools to provide meals for their kids.
“That ... seems to be kind of a struggle for a lot of our family members,” Whitesides said, “knowing that they have not only dinner but now they have to try and find lunch and breakfast when usually they … rely on schools, or sometimes the Boys and Girls Club, for those things.”
In the last two weeks, the Boys and Girls Clubs have donated over 6,000 meals in food boxes to Utah families, or about 150 boxes per week. (School districts throughout Utah also are distributing breakfast and lunch packages to students.)
Donations to the Boys and Girls Club’s COVID-19 Response Fund can be made online or by calling the administration office at 801-322-4411; ask to speak to Jaimie Dunn. The club also is recruiting volunteers to help deliver food boxes to its seven Utah locations.
Volunteers assemble meal boxes in the club buildings while taking safety precautions. They are required to have their temperature checked before they enter, wash their hands as soon as they enter, and wear face masks. Currently, the clubs are only having two to three people assemble meal boxes at a time.
Some teenage members of the Boys and Girls Club struggle with mental health issues, which have been amplified by social isolation.
“Many of our youth come to Club and without even realizing it learn conflict resolution, coping skills, and they have a place to put a label on their emotion and work through it with an adult they trust,” Whitesides wrote in an email. “And right now that is missing.”
Several clubs have licensed therapists join Zoom calls with teens, to help them work through their emotions. Some club staff have backgrounds and training that allow them to help club members learn how to process their frustrations in a healthy way.
“They want to vent, they want to talk about their concerns, their frustrations, their annoyances,” Bueno said. "And sometimes that’s hard to do in their family setting because their parents are feeling the same emotion.”
Group discussions also show teens that what they are experiencing is valid, and that many people in the Boys and Girls Club and also the rest of the country are experiencing the same fear and stress.
Williams first went to the club in 2014, when her dad needed a place for Williams and her sister to go while he worked. It was her first year in Utah and she didn’t know anyone; the club initially was “this place [where] they watch you after school," she said.
But as she met people and became involved, she said, she realized "they’re always there for you, they support you, and during this pandemic, I feel like we’ve all gotten to realize that we’re all in this together. We’re not alone, we’re figuring this out all as we go, it’s scary but we’re going to get through it.”
There is light at the end of the tunnel: Members will be able to see their friends again next month while staying safe. On June 8, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake is planning to open a few of its locations for its summer schedule, with safety adjustments.
“We will be maintaining smaller group sizes, allowing for regular disinfecting of areas being used, [and] parents will not be allowed inside the building,” Bueno wrote in an email. “All staff are required to wear a mask, and of course [they will] encourage frequent hand washing from kids and staff.”
The club will also take temperatures of staff and youths before they enter buildings. It will encourage parents to provide their children with masks, and the club will provide masks when available.
Boys and Girls Clubs that serve as Emergency Child Care Centers (ECCs) already have practice with these extra safety precautions. Five of the club’s seven locations have been open since April 1, caring for children of essential workers, but only 32 people have been allowed into each building in total.
Starting next month, the Price, Tooele, and Midvale locations will remain ECCs and the rest of the clubs will open as normal Boys and Girls Clubs.
Bueno said it is important for the clubs to continue to support kids during the pandemic, and that it also gives parents time to focus on work.
“It’s a good way for the kids to process what’s going on in the world in a productive, healthy manner, Bueno said. "The club provides a safe environment, a stable environment, a healthy environment during such an uncertain time.”
