Boys and Girls Club celebrates 20 years in Cedar Rapids

A Cedar Rapids organization that serves around 300 kids a day across Cedar Rapids is preparing to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Cedar Rapids offers after school and summer programming to area children, almost all from families living below the poverty line.

Stacey Walker, 25, was one of those kids. He said the Boys & Girls Club changed his life.

After his mother was murdered when he was four, he and his sister were raised by their grandmother, who worked the night shift as a nurse.

IF YOU WANT TO GO

What: Boys & Girls Clubs of Cedar Rapids 20th Anniversary Celebration

When: Tue., Nov. 12, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m

Where: Cedar Rapids Marriott, 1200 Collins Road NE

Details: RSVP by emailing shoeger@bgccr.org or calling the office at (319) 363-5766; Free, donations welcome

Every day after school, he and his friends walked to the Boys & Girls Club.

“That was life for us. That was an escape from the dismal reality,” he said. “The Boys & Girls Club is giving people confidence and self esteem. It is very, very necessary.”

Named Boys & Girls Club National Youth of the Year in 2006, Walker earned a college scholarship and went on to work with the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in Washington D.C. before returning to Cedar Rapids this year.

“The most surefire way for upward mobility is education,” he said, adding a lot of kids have no one to show them the way to go to college. “They don't have any model. None of their parents have done it. No one is in their ear, telling them they can do it, unless they're going to the Boys & Girls Club.”

The program got off to a bumpy start in the early ‘90s, said executive director John Tursi, but has grown due to a groundswell of community support.

“We started at one little place serving 48 kids a day,” he said. “Back in the day we were probably a glorified babysitting service.”

Today the clubs offer hot meals and educational programming at five sites around the metro.

Tursi said a lot of growth happened after the flood, when many families were displaced and the rest of the community became more aware of the plights of their neighbors.

The flood - which sent three feet of water into the second floor of one of the Boys and Girls Clubs sites - also inspired the organization to find ways to take clubs to kids, leading to the group opening more sites.

“We're moving past just being a youth development agency to serving some of the basic needs of kids and families,” Tursi said.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Cedar Rapids will celebrate their 20th Anniversary Nov. 12. Walker will speak, along with Mayor Ron Corbett and Jeffrey Chamber, another past club member. The clubs' history will be on display with a video and table displays during the open-house style event.