April 29, 2023 • 29 mins
Kevin Hattery is the president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston. They are gearing up for the best summer camps available to Houstonians. Not only is it just $25 for the whole summer, it’s convenient because of all their locations and you’re free to drop in and out of the programs. Going to visit Grandma for a few weeks? Drop back into the program when you get back! We also discuss literacy & math and helping children to keep up with their learning during the summer lull. Their workforce readiness programs help older students obtain valuable on-the-job experiences. They’re one of the best Orgs in town to support: www.bgcgh.org
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(00:05):
Welcome to Houston, PA. Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeart Media broadcast.
Our discomber says that the opinion isexpressed on the show who not necessarily
reflect those hell by this radio station. It's management staff for any of its
advertisers. My name is Laurult.I am the texting from France, and
I guarantee you that I Heeart.The whole team here at iHeart Houston is
(00:28):
entirely behind the subject. I bringingto you, ladies and gentlemen. The
Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houstonis back on the air with me.
Kevin Hattery, their president and CEO. Well, how are things, Yeah,
it's it's gone great. Thanks againfor having us. It's a pleasure
rant to have a chance to speakwith you and your audience. Well,
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I think that we have an audiencehere that that feels a lot like me.
We we see the news and wesee all these young people shooting each
other, sometimes literally, and we'rea little horror fight by it, and
we just have to remind ourselves thatthere's actually nothing wrong with the raw materials,
so to speak. It's really whatwe're putting in their heads or the
lack thereof, And after having aninterview with the Literacy Now and talking about
(01:12):
how only about thirty percent of thirdgraders can read at third grade level,
let me say that again, folks, because when I try to remember the
stat I remember it upside down.I remember that only that thirty percent of
our children are illiterate. When it'sreversed, it's so catastrophic that my brain
doesn't want to remember it correctly.Only three out of ten third grader in
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Houston is capable of reading at thirdgrade level. And the truth is that's
an average. If you break itdown by racial lines, which is very
important these days, it's a lotworse in the black and Hispanic community.
And the only reason it's happening thatI can tell, is because we lack
the political will to do something aboutit. Because it's not like Kevin.
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You're surrounded by people that are highlycompetent. The children in your clubs end
up in selling in school. You'reyou're the living embodiment of what an organization
can do for these children and howwe can motivate them to excel, and
that they really they're just waiting forthat. Every kid needs a starter,
right, that's right where we're helpingkids who need us the most. Yes,
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what our mission is, that's ourobligation. And again you take into
account just the statistic you provided thereis thirty percent or only literate. You
learn to read so you can readto learn, which is why it's so
critically important that we spend time nowwith the young people. It's certainly been
exacerbated over the last few years andwe need to accelerate that and so opportunities
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that the Boys and Girls Club createsthat space for young people to get engaged
and have resources for families it maynot have those resources. So what kind
of space is this? For someonewho's never really heard of the Boys and
Girls Clubs of Greater Houston, howwould you define it? How do you
describe the organization? Yeah, Boysand Girls Club is an after school and
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a school time program, meaning thatwe are open during the summertime and as
we start to approach that, Iwould encourage anyone in the audience to go
to our website at bgcgh dot orgto learn more about our locations where you
can come to to have a fun, safe place for your children to go
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to UM. If you're a teenager, we have Team clubs as well.
You can find all this information atour website. And what I really want
to underscore is is the fact thatit's just twenty five dollars for the entire
twenty five bucks for the whole program. How often can the children and teenagers
attend? Yeah, it's a fivedays a week Monday through Friday. At
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our website, there's varying times inthat we're open at each respective club in
which clubs are open, but wehave over twenty clubs that are available throughout
the Greater Houston region for any youngperson to attend and the families, this
is a great opportunity to have aa unique experience as well as just having
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that safe place for kids to beduring the summertime period. You know,
it's really interesting. We'll have,um a lot of kids that go to
our program during the after school butum we've also found that what happens is
during the summertime, parents are passingby their work and so kids start to
come from all over the place togo to a club because parents are dropping
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them off as they as they headto work. Yeah, well, you're
providing a safe space that is goingto be full of education and you have
all these pesky rules about behavior andhow everybody has to be respectful of each
other and themselves, and it's justit's exactly what we need and more of.
But if you've got twenty clubs andyou're only asking for twenty five dollars,
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obviously the families are barely they're noteven subsidizing the actual costs of the
course. It's an it's an amazingfacility to to to make available to Eustonians.
But how do you get the restof your phone yet? Well,
and that's that's a great point whenwhen you look at the economics of it.
Yeah, less than one percent ofour budget comes from these club memberships
that are coming from the children family, So it's the community at large,
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and that's the value of having strongpublic private partnership. So we're receiving funding
from UH individuals, especially events thatwe conduct, foundations, corporations, UM,
and some from from government as wellat the state, local, and
federal level. So UM it's intendedto UH to be a commitment on the
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part of the young person and theirfamilies that that's sending their their their kids.
But it's not to deter anybody.We accept anybody into the the program.
And if twenty five dollars is astretch for for some, and it
certainly is, then um, wehave scholarships available. Yeah. So it's
it's not a there's no limitation,um that we're putting on any young person
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or their families to come and bea part of this. And again on
our website bgcgh dot org that hasall the locations and um, find the
one one that's nearest you. Orif it's when you pass by when you're
driving to work and you need aplace for your child to go to,
then we're resource for Yeah, thefamilies out there. I feel like the
twenty five dollars is a symbol symbolic. You're you're just asking people to put
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up something, to commit a littleskin in the game, so to speak.
Right, if it costs nothing,it's yeah, so yeah, so
that's that's Uh, that's why wehave that nominal nominal fee. And again
it's it's it's for the entire summer, and it's and so you can you
can come Monday through Friday. Um, you can come for the first half
of the summer um or the secondhalf, or if you take vacation in
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between, or something then you know, come before or after this year,
it's Space City Summer where we havethat that our theme is our theme,
so we'll lean in a little bitmore around our stem education. And also
there's opportunities because we do have theyoung people with us all day long,
we can take more field trips andone of those will be at Space Center
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Houston, important partner of ours.And so only do we have strong partnerships
with those who provide financial contributions,but also those organizations that have services to
offer as well. In partnership withSpace Center Houston's a good example of that.
UM. A lot of at ourcore is around academic success, helping
lifestyles, character development in the evenworkforce readiness. So we have partners that
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are collaborating with this on this toUM not duplicating any services or programs,
but to maximize what we have inthe in our in our region in order
to make create good experiences for thechildren that are coming to us. Bgcgh
dot Org bgcgh dot org of coursethat stands for Boys and Girls Clubs of
(07:43):
Greater Houston. You are listening toHouston PA Houston's Public Affairs Show. My
name is Laurent and my guest isKevin Hattery. He is the president and
CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs ofGreater Houston. We've already mentioned the workforce
Readiness program. Uh oh, actually, before I get to that, I'm
curious, like generally speaking, ifa parent is listening, So I've never
(08:03):
heard of this Boys and Girls Clubsof Greater Houston. What kind of activities
aside from helping my child with homework? And I guess during the summer you
have some summer school, maybe somerepertory programs to help some kids catch up,
But you're also doing a ton offun stuff. And in fact,
isn't that what most of the hoursI spend or how does that breakdown?
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We don't want to think it's nota classroom stuff curricula. It's a real
club for fun. Have a location, a physical location that is safe that
it's also fun, but it's experientiallearning. So um o. Our programs
are designed to help young people continueto ensure they don't. Typically it's a
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summer slide that occurs. It's beenexacerbated here over the last couple of years,
and so it's even more important toread so it won't be a reading
class, but we'll have opportunities forreading for example, to do math.
We have healthy snacks and meals asas well. So, um, we're
helping to keep the um the activitygoing for the young anybody that's young.
(09:11):
Yeah, so it's a it's agreat opportunity just to um ensure that there's
this continued growth that's taking place.And I hear you're introduced. You're trying
to introduce some good eating habits.Do you have cooking classes and such or
we do? And most those aregreat skills. Oh yes, uh and
and really at the middle school andthe high school level, if you will,
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the tweens and the teens will havemore opportunity in that learn how to
fry an egg, anything, makea crepe, any anything that would be
the French way. What are yougonna do with these eggs? Is flour
in this milk? Crepes? Foreverybody, part of it it's learning,
and then it's also learning that um, you know, there may be something
and we have gardens in some ofour locations for example, so um,
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so they're gardening too. Yeah,they're all yeah, there's you have an
opportunity to learn about those things andand maybe, Um, someone hasn't seen
a specific vegetable for all, allof a sudden realizes it and and then
they go home and they talk totheir parents and oh, yeah, let's
make zucchini tonight. Okay, great, let's go find zucchini and uh.
Um. So that's it's just thosecreating those eye opening the experiences. You
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know. Half the time, it'sjust it's awareness and so UM that's what
we we package. UM. There'sand there's mentors there too. So outside
the guardian and that in the parents, there's critically important to young person,
there's also an other adult mentors.Yeah. So often as as a parent,
you'll you'll tell your child, uh, give them direction, and then
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they didn't hear you, but somebodyelse will say, yeah, they take
it right. So it's always goodto have a UM. The mentors around
you. Aren't some of your mentorsX kids X members so to speak.
Yeah, you know what's it's fascinatingwe have UM and that's part of the
UM, the synergy that that's createda m We refer to anyone who goes
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through the program as a club alum, and so our our club alum will
come back and serve in in ma professional career, as a as an
after school professional. UM. Wehave board members who were were club alum.
We have donors who are a clubalum. It's really exciting to see
that when we're talking about it beinga movement, Yeah, and what that
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means for us, and it's it'sthat synergy that's created UM generation after generation.
Yeah, it's the kind of programthat will not only help you with
life skills, but also help youform some of the bonds that might be
crucial to your professional life, yourromantic life, it just your social life.
But yeah, it's it's it iswhat a lot of these kids need
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if they don't have a safe environmentto live in. And unfortunately, on
our streets, it often is thecase that the minute you walk out of
your condo, your apartment, orwhatever you live in, UM, there's
a stray dog out there looking tobite you. And that's literally true sometimes,
but it's also figuratively true. Youknow, there's a lot of different
kinds of strays. And I keepreminding myself that if you just get these
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young people and you motivate them toachieve their potential, it goes fairly easily.
It's the exception when the child isreticent or has a hard time,
but we can still help them.But most children are just going to be
just fine. And if you canteach them how to read, you're kind
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of securing their potential for the restof their lives. But as we mentioned,
if you look at the average thirdgrader in Houston, only three out
of ten of them can read atthird grade level. And they don't catch
up. They just don't catch up. Most of them just fall through the
cracks forever and they live a lifeof illiteracy or functional illiteracy, which means
that yeah, they can read amenu, but they can't sign a contract,
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and that closes the door to anykind of managerial position. If you
can't fill out paperwork of any kind, you're greatly limited. And it just
so we should talk about this alittle more now. You got y'all have
you you have reading programs and mathprograms, and can you confirm what I
mean that they to say there?The kids are fine, They catch on
pretty quickly, right, It's justthat sometimes they're in classes that are too
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big. The teacher can't give themattention because of all kinds of reasons.
And I'm not blaming the teacher here. And it's not the teacher who chooses
to have large classes. I don'tknow any who would. But you're kind
of recreating an environment that the averageteacher would dream of. You can have
a small group pulls, pull thekids aside that needs some mix of attention
and create a program that is funand efficient, right right, And so
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we have have programs that are whatyou referred to as universal. So it
might be twenty kids in the oneclassroom, and then which is small by
his the stangers, which is smallthat that's our our target, yea size
group. And then then you alsohave those that are more small group,
so down at too or three yeah, right, So it's depending on what
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the needs are for each for eachyoung person, and it's not the only
solution. We're part of the entireeducation process for young people. So we're
supplementating and supporting that. So andduring the school year, we're we're not
there to change anything. We're justthere to compliment what's already happening. And
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for someone who might need litle extraattention, then we have a program that
allows for that. I know fromCarol Borgeaux who helped me set up this
interview, shout out to her andElmore Public Relations, some of the great
professionals I like to work with intown. You've raised a nine hundred and
fifteen nine hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. I just want to say a million,
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and it's not coming out, butyou're just close to a million.
It was during the Great Future's Dinnerand lays and Gentlemen they got close to
a million. But money is stillcoming in because it's not a fixed date.
And you can help them get toa million if you want BGCGH dot
org, if you want to donate, but you're involved these these UH professional
teams and most recently, as youmentioned, we were honoring the Houston Texans
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our annual event that we call theGreat Futures Dinner and and UH and rightly
so in terms of recognizing them forthe many years of their financial support UM,
which led to the development of theHouston Texans team club so design specifically
for four teenagers and UM. They'reongoing support throughout our entire footprint and reaching
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and most importantly, as you mentioned, it's all about UM having the mentors
to look up to and athletes andother professionals cheerleaders will come out spend time
with our our young people to encouragethem and give them that that beacon of
hope. Um, they're a lightfor them. And and uh, not
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only as the Texans, it's alsothe the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets,
Houston Dynamo are all involved in inour organization and so UM again it's
just imagine. It's like, howmany kids get to actually our adults even
get to go to play on umToyota Centers of Court. Well, our
our kids do. How many kidsget to throw out or how how many
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adults even get to throw out aUM a first pitch for the World Series.
Well, because of that relationship,we we get to have young people
do that. And even most recentlyhad our what we call our Youth of
the Year and he had a chanceto UM play um horse. They called
it zero because they're talking about cokezero, but um they played zero and
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it was with Magic Johnson, andMagic Johnson came out earlier, um in
a year or two to yeah andto talk. So it's the the opportunities
go beyond just I mean if you'rea young person, or if your family
or if your parents saying, well, yeah, it's a fun place to
go, but there's all these uniqueopportunities that come up. Um, we
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took there's six hundred kids in thisarea that went to Houston Astros baseball game
last last summer. So it's it'snot it's really these unique experiences that just
can't be captured any other other way. Um. And for some it's the
first time they ever gone to agame or been in a Toyter Center or
part of that. So, yeah, I get to see a professional athlete.
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You can't measure the motivation that itcreates. And the kid too,
because when it's like giving them ataste of the possibilities of their life,
of their future, it's like youall, you need to follow the advice
that these people were giving you andyou can come see the games you want.
Yea and yeah, and starts torealize, okay, I'm an athlete.
Yeah, um, that becomes verysmall. But it also opens the
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eyes of fact that well, thisis actually a place of work. Yeah,
it's something I do as a business, and that kind of that also
leads into our workforce readiness programs andI just share with you too, especially
for the teenagers it's there's opportunities forapprenticeships, part time jobs, work,
work based learning, and so wehave those programs. So maybe it's not
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with the presonal force, and maybeit's with some places like Philip sixty six
or Toyota for example, but youhave that exposure. Um. Not every
young person wants to have a fouryear degree. Um. They want to
do something else that requires more productiveYeah. Just kit, I'm kidding it
forever it's certificate, you know.Yes, So it's we are here to
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really help what we call it,we say, create great futures while we're
preparing them for life and work andhum, we want to help guide,
give them a framework, you know, a guide and and it's really uh,
we're kind of that um that thevessel, if you will. And
you've got a whole lot of partnersthat are helping us do what we do
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to make our community better. Andlisten, you can put your kids into
the entire summer program for just twentyfive dollars. That is the cost of
the membership for the entire program overthe summer. B gcgh dot org bgc
gh dot RG of course, thatstands stands for Boys and Girls Clubs of
(19:11):
Greater Houston. My name is Lawrence. You are listening to Houston, PA,
and my guest is Kevin Hattery.He is the President and CEO of
Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houston. Again BGC dot org to find out
all their programs. Twenty five bucksjust to get to get into the summer
programs, which is going to getthe opportunity to your son or your daughter
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to go do things like visit theSpace Center. By the way, if
you haven't been to the Space Center, you don't need to be a member
of a club to go down there. They've they've opened a tourist attraction of
sorts. I don't mean that ina bad way. It is a good
thing that they've opened up this sortof museum. It's a living museum.
You can touch a lot of things. They've got flight simulators. It's a
wonderful destination. And if anything,you can drive by and see some of
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the actual rockets that they've got presentit out there lying down. These are
massive, massive, beautiful machines.And to think that Alon Musk and SpaceX
or ascending machines that are even bigger. Now, there was a bit of
an explosion just recently, but itwas such a beautiful failure. And I
know they're optimistic about it, andobviously it's just a step, but I
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like the idea that our space cityis becoming space city even more and we're
attracting an enormous amount of talent becauseit takes so many talents from different areas.
And you were talking about the workprograms that you have for all these
youths, and your associations with bigcorporations means that these kids aren't just learning
how to read and catching up withthat, but they're actually coming into contact
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with the opportunities that may secure theirprofessional future. Literally. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's about creating that.Yeah, that the connection. And
we have corporations that are coming tous asking us to get involved and with
them, and um, we createthat pathway and we're willing a partner.
So if there's someone out in youraudience that wants to consider something like that
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too, then let's have that conversation. Yeah, so let's talk about the
summer jobs. How do you helpto place kids into into those You don't
actually run a summer job program,do you. We don't. We have
partnership with different organizations, companies thathave these opportunities. And course it's more
structured and all parties know that,so that we're able to help them with
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writing the resume, yeah, practicinginterviewing for example, and then this we
have a funnel that that goes rightto that opportunity. Then, so and
so you're actually sort of standing init's you've got a big family at the
Boys and Girls Club of Greater Houston, right, that we do, and
we stand in the gap. Yeah, we stand in the gap of christ
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season. Then we stand in thegap of the needs and during the summertime,
yeah, which is really what we'refocused on because that's what's coming up
right now. But you also youalso have programs during the year or two
right, Like you're a safe placefor the kids to go to after school
out of school time. Yeah,so that happens to being after school approximately
three to seven, and then duringthe summertime that's the eight five hours.
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Yeah, and we've already mentioned thecost of this program is only twenty five
dollars. They actually have scholarships.That's a barrier of entry, but the
programs available, you know, it'sit's a one size fits also to speak,
you pay your you pay your adue, and you can send your
child to the club every day oronly on certain days. It's almost too
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much to say. You can useit as as as a way to liberate
yourselves for other activities if you haveto go to a job or something like
that. And I like it's itseems like the club is completely open to
that and is happy to see thekids whenever they come in. So you
offer them a lot of flexibility.Basic, there's a trueness amount of flexibility.
Yeah. And we'll see this oftentimeswhen even some children are visiting grandparents
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for example. Yeah, yeah,and and so we're of the club to
help them during that time frame too, so and and vice versa. Will
they'll be here for a while andthen they'll go see their grandparents and they
won't be here the entire summer.So um. If again, if you
when you go to our website atbgcgh dot org, you'll see all the
(23:17):
different club locations and the hours,um and find something that's close to you
and and you know, please stopbuy and visit and learn more about the
programs that are taking place. Andum, and there's even there's camps,
mini camps, if you will,worked in within the day as well.
So it may be maybe just fortwo hours if you have your child all
(23:37):
day and you're fine, but eight, you know, two hours times five
days, because we have that workstoo. It means a lot to the
kids and and so we are thatum that second family can't yes, your
first family, but it's really thesecond family. And that's what's the family
you choose. It's your friends.You know. We have a remarkable staff
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that ensures that um they're having thatkind of experience. So it's a it's
a building with programs and services,but the secret sauce, if you will,
is really the um Our team that'sthere every day. That's that's working
with the young people. So youyou can demonstrate that the program is extremely
successful. There's nothing wrong with thekids. They just need to have a
(24:22):
safe environment where to do monkey seemonkey do things. Look. That's what
we are where a bunch of apesand that's how we learn. How do
do you You sit around and atyour coffee table sometimes and thinking about some
man. If I could just haveall the money and all the people I
need in the in the world toto scale up the program, what what
would you say we we actually need. Is it a lack of political will.
(24:45):
I feel like the city has themoney. We certainly have the talent,
the teachers, the mentors, noproblem, we have those. Yeah,
it's um to be responsible. Ismade sure that you can maintain your
ramming and what we do because wedo have to operate like a business like
everybody else, and so it's ensuringthat we have the financial resources because as
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you've as we've discussed, the revenueisn't coming to us by way of the
child and the family. It's comingto us from the support of the community,
whether it's individuals or corporations, foundations, government agencies. So provided we
can create, when we open upsomething new, we look for that financial
(25:30):
sustainability to keep it, to keepit going. Don't want to take away
something after we've started it for ayear that that doesn't benefit anybody. That
speaks just to the longevity of knowingthat you're making a difference than made an
impact. So we have a lotof really rich people in this city,
and some of them sit around thinkingabout what they could do with their millions
(25:51):
of dollars. Could someone just callyou up and say, listen, I'd
like to fund the opening of anew club. Does that happen? Is
that how it happens? And andthen you would sit down with them and
see if it was possible to havethe money actually to open it and then
to run it. Yeah, wedefinitely we want people to call it.
We want inviting body to explore thatUM, that potential partnership. UM important
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to know it's an investment and sothat's the investment of not only the capital,
but then it's also the annual operatingthat's that's required to continue to fund
a program in this case of Boysand Girls Club. So UM. You
know, we welcome that conversation,and it's also where the need is at
so UM and there's different ways todo that. UM. We do partner
(26:37):
with UM school sites as well,and so there that's our partnership with them
and their skin in the game isthe keep the lights on and take care
of all the janitorial services and allthat and security around there. And then
we identify partnerships with donors that wantto see the program happen. So whether
it's our free standing club, ourown and mortar, or it's a partnership
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like with the school or Houston Allayand authority for example. Then we're able
to do programs and deliver have adelivery model more than one place. Yeah,
I want to maximize that. Yeah, you're also in touch with a
lot of other organizations with means thatif you have a kid who comes in
and you can identify that they havea need that you can't serve, maybe
they need furniture, you can callthe Houston Furniture Bank and help them out
(27:23):
that way. We don't we haven'tdiscussed that, but it's the connections that
allow the children to meet mentors,do better in school and then go on
to successful professional lives or the samesort of connections that that facilitate the making
their lives better right now, right, And there's certain level of programming we
(27:44):
can do, and so mental healthwell being is certainly top of mind with
but a lot, I mean,the need is just continue to show and
show more. And so while we'renot experts in that, we have partnerships
with organization that have those services andso we're that frontline. We're able to
identify that and so it's it's havinga direct connection to those who provide those
(28:12):
services, and in some cases wehave it designed so that those resources are
coming in to our club club locations, so we're trying to fill as many
gaps as we possibly can. Andyou know, folks, don't be discouraged.
You know, I was talking abouthow Millionaire could help to open a
new center, but all of uscould just go to the website and donate
(28:33):
five dollars because that would amount toa million dollars really quickly if we all
did that. But it's an importantaspect of it too. You know.
You you may not even have thetime to volunteer for an organization, any
nonprofit because of the place you arein your life, maybe you just had
a kid, But you can alwaysgo to bgcgh dot org and donate a
little money help them keep the lightson. But I think that we just
(28:56):
need to keep talking about it.Tell your friends that you're heard on the
radio that only thirty percent of thirdgraders in Houston can read at third grade
level. You take ten kids inHouston, and only three of them who
are in third grade can read atthat level. It's something we need to
talk about. And the more wetalk about it, the less of a
problem that will become because people arejust gonna go what that's ridiculous. I'll
(29:17):
help fund some of these programs thatare helping these kids long how to read,
like Boys and Girls Clubs of GreaterHouston. So, folks, if
you have any questions related to Houston, PA, you can just send me
an email. Texan from France atgmail dot com. Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I'm happy toanswer your question, even if it's simple
as apparently benign as asking for awebsite. I'm glad to send it to
(29:40):
you, and i want to thankyou for listening and caring about the issues
that put on this show. I'llbe here next week at the same time.
Folks. My name is Laurent Iam the Texan from France and this
has been Houston PA, Houston's publicaffairs show, Houston Strong
Welcome to Houston, PA. Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeart Media broadcast.
Our discomber says that the opinion isexpressed on the show who not necessarily
reflect those hell by this radio station. It's management staff for any of its
advertisers. My name is Laurult.I am the texting from France, and
I guarantee you that I Heeart.The whole team here at iHeart Houston is
(00:28):
entirely behind the subject. I bringingto you, ladies and gentlemen. The
Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houstonis back on the air with me.
Kevin Hattery, their president and CEO. Well, how are things, Yeah,
it's it's gone great. Thanks againfor having us. It's a pleasure
rant to have a chance to speakwith you and your audience. Well,
(00:49):
I think that we have an audiencehere that that feels a lot like me.
We we see the news and wesee all these young people shooting each
other, sometimes literally, and we'rea little horror fight by it, and
we just have to remind ourselves thatthere's actually nothing wrong with the raw materials,
so to speak. It's really whatwe're putting in their heads or the
lack thereof, And after having aninterview with the Literacy Now and talking about
(01:12):
how only about thirty percent of thirdgraders can read at third grade level,
let me say that again, folks, because when I try to remember the
stat I remember it upside down.I remember that only that thirty percent of
our children are illiterate. When it'sreversed, it's so catastrophic that my brain
doesn't want to remember it correctly.Only three out of ten third grader in
(01:34):
Houston is capable of reading at thirdgrade level. And the truth is that's
an average. If you break itdown by racial lines, which is very
important these days, it's a lotworse in the black and Hispanic community.
And the only reason it's happening thatI can tell, is because we lack
the political will to do something aboutit. Because it's not like Kevin.
(01:55):
You're surrounded by people that are highlycompetent. The children in your clubs end
up in selling in school. You'reyou're the living embodiment of what an organization
can do for these children and howwe can motivate them to excel, and
that they really they're just waiting forthat. Every kid needs a starter,
right, that's right where we're helpingkids who need us the most. Yes,
(02:16):
what our mission is, that's ourobligation. And again you take into
account just the statistic you provided thereis thirty percent or only literate. You
learn to read so you can readto learn, which is why it's so
critically important that we spend time nowwith the young people. It's certainly been
exacerbated over the last few years andwe need to accelerate that and so opportunities
(02:39):
that the Boys and Girls Club createsthat space for young people to get engaged
and have resources for families it maynot have those resources. So what kind
of space is this? For someonewho's never really heard of the Boys and
Girls Clubs of Greater Houston, howwould you define it? How do you
describe the organization? Yeah, Boysand Girls Club is an after school and
(03:00):
a school time program, meaning thatwe are open during the summertime and as
we start to approach that, Iwould encourage anyone in the audience to go
to our website at bgcgh dot orgto learn more about our locations where you
can come to to have a fun, safe place for your children to go
(03:21):
to UM. If you're a teenager, we have Team clubs as well.
You can find all this information atour website. And what I really want
to underscore is is the fact thatit's just twenty five dollars for the entire
twenty five bucks for the whole program. How often can the children and teenagers
attend? Yeah, it's a fivedays a week Monday through Friday. At
(03:44):
our website, there's varying times inthat we're open at each respective club in
which clubs are open, but wehave over twenty clubs that are available throughout
the Greater Houston region for any youngperson to attend and the families, this
is a great opportunity to have aa unique experience as well as just having
(04:04):
that safe place for kids to beduring the summertime period. You know,
it's really interesting. We'll have,um a lot of kids that go to
our program during the after school butum we've also found that what happens is
during the summertime, parents are passingby their work and so kids start to
come from all over the place togo to a club because parents are dropping
(04:24):
them off as they as they headto work. Yeah, well, you're
providing a safe space that is goingto be full of education and you have
all these pesky rules about behavior andhow everybody has to be respectful of each
other and themselves, and it's justit's exactly what we need and more of.
But if you've got twenty clubs andyou're only asking for twenty five dollars,
(04:46):
obviously the families are barely they're noteven subsidizing the actual costs of the
course. It's an it's an amazingfacility to to to make available to Eustonians.
But how do you get the restof your phone yet? Well,
and that's that's a great point whenwhen you look at the economics of it.
Yeah, less than one percent ofour budget comes from these club memberships
that are coming from the children family, So it's the community at large,
(05:09):
and that's the value of having strongpublic private partnership. So we're receiving funding
from UH individuals, especially events thatwe conduct, foundations, corporations, UM,
and some from from government as wellat the state, local, and
federal level. So UM it's intendedto UH to be a commitment on the
(05:29):
part of the young person and theirfamilies that that's sending their their their kids.
But it's not to deter anybody.We accept anybody into the the program.
And if twenty five dollars is astretch for for some, and it
certainly is, then um, wehave scholarships available. Yeah. So it's
it's not a there's no limitation,um that we're putting on any young person
(05:49):
or their families to come and bea part of this. And again on
our website bgcgh dot org that hasall the locations and um, find the
one one that's nearest you. Orif it's when you pass by when you're
driving to work and you need aplace for your child to go to,
then we're resource for Yeah, thefamilies out there. I feel like the
twenty five dollars is a symbol symbolic. You're you're just asking people to put
(06:13):
up something, to commit a littleskin in the game, so to speak.
Right, if it costs nothing,it's yeah, so yeah, so
that's that's Uh, that's why wehave that nominal nominal fee. And again
it's it's it's for the entire summer, and it's and so you can you
can come Monday through Friday. Um, you can come for the first half
of the summer um or the secondhalf, or if you take vacation in
(06:35):
between, or something then you know, come before or after this year,
it's Space City Summer where we havethat that our theme is our theme,
so we'll lean in a little bitmore around our stem education. And also
there's opportunities because we do have theyoung people with us all day long,
we can take more field trips andone of those will be at Space Center
(06:56):
Houston, important partner of ours.And so only do we have strong partnerships
with those who provide financial contributions,but also those organizations that have services to
offer as well. In partnership withSpace Center Houston's a good example of that.
UM. A lot of at ourcore is around academic success, helping
lifestyles, character development in the evenworkforce readiness. So we have partners that
(07:21):
are collaborating with this on this toUM not duplicating any services or programs,
but to maximize what we have inthe in our in our region in order
to make create good experiences for thechildren that are coming to us. Bgcgh
dot Org bgcgh dot org of coursethat stands for Boys and Girls Clubs of
(07:43):
Greater Houston. You are listening toHouston PA Houston's Public Affairs Show. My
name is Laurent and my guest isKevin Hattery. He is the president and
CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs ofGreater Houston. We've already mentioned the workforce
Readiness program. Uh oh, actually, before I get to that, I'm
curious, like generally speaking, ifa parent is listening, So I've never
(08:03):
heard of this Boys and Girls Clubsof Greater Houston. What kind of activities
aside from helping my child with homework? And I guess during the summer you
have some summer school, maybe somerepertory programs to help some kids catch up,
But you're also doing a ton offun stuff. And in fact,
isn't that what most of the hoursI spend or how does that breakdown?
(08:24):
We don't want to think it's nota classroom stuff curricula. It's a real
club for fun. Have a location, a physical location that is safe that
it's also fun, but it's experientiallearning. So um o. Our programs
are designed to help young people continueto ensure they don't. Typically it's a
(08:46):
summer slide that occurs. It's beenexacerbated here over the last couple of years,
and so it's even more important toread so it won't be a reading
class, but we'll have opportunities forreading for example, to do math.
We have healthy snacks and meals asas well. So, um, we're
helping to keep the um the activitygoing for the young anybody that's young.
(09:11):
Yeah, so it's a it's agreat opportunity just to um ensure that there's
this continued growth that's taking place.And I hear you're introduced. You're trying
to introduce some good eating habits.Do you have cooking classes and such or
we do? And most those aregreat skills. Oh yes, uh and
and really at the middle school andthe high school level, if you will,
(09:33):
the tweens and the teens will havemore opportunity in that learn how to
fry an egg, anything, makea crepe, any anything that would be
the French way. What are yougonna do with these eggs? Is flour
in this milk? Crepes? Foreverybody, part of it it's learning,
and then it's also learning that um, you know, there may be something
and we have gardens in some ofour locations for example, so um,
(09:56):
so they're gardening too. Yeah,they're all yeah, there's you have an
opportunity to learn about those things andand maybe, Um, someone hasn't seen
a specific vegetable for all, allof a sudden realizes it and and then
they go home and they talk totheir parents and oh, yeah, let's
make zucchini tonight. Okay, great, let's go find zucchini and uh.
Um. So that's it's just thosecreating those eye opening the experiences. You
(10:18):
know. Half the time, it'sjust it's awareness and so UM that's what
we we package. UM. There'sand there's mentors there too. So outside
the guardian and that in the parents, there's critically important to young person,
there's also an other adult mentors.Yeah. So often as as a parent,
you'll you'll tell your child, uh, give them direction, and then
(10:39):
they didn't hear you, but somebodyelse will say, yeah, they take
it right. So it's always goodto have a UM. The mentors around
you. Aren't some of your mentorsX kids X members so to speak.
Yeah, you know what's it's fascinatingwe have UM and that's part of the
UM, the synergy that that's createda m We refer to anyone who goes
(11:01):
through the program as a club alum, and so our our club alum will
come back and serve in in ma professional career, as a as an
after school professional. UM. Wehave board members who were were club alum.
We have donors who are a clubalum. It's really exciting to see
that when we're talking about it beinga movement, Yeah, and what that
(11:22):
means for us, and it's it'sthat synergy that's created UM generation after generation.
Yeah, it's the kind of programthat will not only help you with
life skills, but also help youform some of the bonds that might be
crucial to your professional life, yourromantic life, it just your social life.
But yeah, it's it's it iswhat a lot of these kids need
(11:45):
if they don't have a safe environmentto live in. And unfortunately, on
our streets, it often is thecase that the minute you walk out of
your condo, your apartment, orwhatever you live in, UM, there's
a stray dog out there looking tobite you. And that's literally true sometimes,
but it's also figuratively true. Youknow, there's a lot of different
kinds of strays. And I keepreminding myself that if you just get these
(12:09):
young people and you motivate them toachieve their potential, it goes fairly easily.
It's the exception when the child isreticent or has a hard time,
but we can still help them.But most children are just going to be
just fine. And if you canteach them how to read, you're kind
(12:30):
of securing their potential for the restof their lives. But as we mentioned,
if you look at the average thirdgrader in Houston, only three out
of ten of them can read atthird grade level. And they don't catch
up. They just don't catch up. Most of them just fall through the
cracks forever and they live a lifeof illiteracy or functional illiteracy, which means
that yeah, they can read amenu, but they can't sign a contract,
(12:52):
and that closes the door to anykind of managerial position. If you
can't fill out paperwork of any kind, you're greatly limited. And it just
so we should talk about this alittle more now. You got y'all have
you you have reading programs and mathprograms, and can you confirm what I
mean that they to say there?The kids are fine, They catch on
pretty quickly, right, It's justthat sometimes they're in classes that are too
(13:15):
big. The teacher can't give themattention because of all kinds of reasons.
And I'm not blaming the teacher here. And it's not the teacher who chooses
to have large classes. I don'tknow any who would. But you're kind
of recreating an environment that the averageteacher would dream of. You can have
a small group pulls, pull thekids aside that needs some mix of attention
and create a program that is funand efficient, right right, And so
(13:39):
we have have programs that are whatyou referred to as universal. So it
might be twenty kids in the oneclassroom, and then which is small by
his the stangers, which is smallthat that's our our target, yea size
group. And then then you alsohave those that are more small group,
so down at too or three yeah, right, So it's depending on what
(14:01):
the needs are for each for eachyoung person, and it's not the only
solution. We're part of the entireeducation process for young people. So we're
supplementating and supporting that. So andduring the school year, we're we're not
there to change anything. We're justthere to compliment what's already happening. And
(14:22):
for someone who might need litle extraattention, then we have a program that
allows for that. I know fromCarol Borgeaux who helped me set up this
interview, shout out to her andElmore Public Relations, some of the great
professionals I like to work with intown. You've raised a nine hundred and
fifteen nine hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. I just want to say a million,
(14:43):
and it's not coming out, butyou're just close to a million.
It was during the Great Future's Dinnerand lays and Gentlemen they got close to
a million. But money is stillcoming in because it's not a fixed date.
And you can help them get toa million if you want BGCGH dot
org, if you want to donate, but you're involved these these UH professional
teams and most recently, as youmentioned, we were honoring the Houston Texans
(15:05):
our annual event that we call theGreat Futures Dinner and and UH and rightly
so in terms of recognizing them forthe many years of their financial support UM,
which led to the development of theHouston Texans team club so design specifically
for four teenagers and UM. They'reongoing support throughout our entire footprint and reaching
(15:28):
and most importantly, as you mentioned, it's all about UM having the mentors
to look up to and athletes andother professionals cheerleaders will come out spend time
with our our young people to encouragethem and give them that that beacon of
hope. Um, they're a lightfor them. And and uh, not
(15:48):
only as the Texans, it's alsothe the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets,
Houston Dynamo are all involved in inour organization and so UM again it's
just imagine. It's like, howmany kids get to actually our adults even
get to go to play on umToyota Centers of Court. Well, our
our kids do. How many kidsget to throw out or how how many
(16:14):
adults even get to throw out aUM a first pitch for the World Series.
Well, because of that relationship,we we get to have young people
do that. And even most recentlyhad our what we call our Youth of
the Year and he had a chanceto UM play um horse. They called
it zero because they're talking about cokezero, but um they played zero and
(16:34):
it was with Magic Johnson, andMagic Johnson came out earlier, um in
a year or two to yeah andto talk. So it's the the opportunities
go beyond just I mean if you'rea young person, or if your family
or if your parents saying, well, yeah, it's a fun place to
go, but there's all these uniqueopportunities that come up. Um, we
(16:55):
took there's six hundred kids in thisarea that went to Houston Astros baseball game
last last summer. So it's it'snot it's really these unique experiences that just
can't be captured any other other way. Um. And for some it's the
first time they ever gone to agame or been in a Toyter Center or
part of that. So, yeah, I get to see a professional athlete.
(17:18):
You can't measure the motivation that itcreates. And the kid too,
because when it's like giving them ataste of the possibilities of their life,
of their future, it's like youall, you need to follow the advice
that these people were giving you andyou can come see the games you want.
Yea and yeah, and starts torealize, okay, I'm an athlete.
Yeah, um, that becomes verysmall. But it also opens the
(17:42):
eyes of fact that well, thisis actually a place of work. Yeah,
it's something I do as a business, and that kind of that also
leads into our workforce readiness programs andI just share with you too, especially
for the teenagers it's there's opportunities forapprenticeships, part time jobs, work,
work based learning, and so wehave those programs. So maybe it's not
(18:06):
with the presonal force, and maybeit's with some places like Philip sixty six
or Toyota for example, but youhave that exposure. Um. Not every
young person wants to have a fouryear degree. Um. They want to
do something else that requires more productiveYeah. Just kit, I'm kidding it
forever it's certificate, you know.Yes, So it's we are here to
(18:27):
really help what we call it,we say, create great futures while we're
preparing them for life and work andhum, we want to help guide,
give them a framework, you know, a guide and and it's really uh,
we're kind of that um that thevessel, if you will. And
you've got a whole lot of partnersthat are helping us do what we do
(18:48):
to make our community better. Andlisten, you can put your kids into
the entire summer program for just twentyfive dollars. That is the cost of
the membership for the entire program overthe summer. B gcgh dot org bgc
gh dot RG of course, thatstands stands for Boys and Girls Clubs of
(19:11):
Greater Houston. My name is Lawrence. You are listening to Houston, PA,
and my guest is Kevin Hattery.He is the President and CEO of
Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houston. Again BGC dot org to find out
all their programs. Twenty five bucksjust to get to get into the summer
programs, which is going to getthe opportunity to your son or your daughter
(19:33):
to go do things like visit theSpace Center. By the way, if
you haven't been to the Space Center, you don't need to be a member
of a club to go down there. They've they've opened a tourist attraction of
sorts. I don't mean that ina bad way. It is a good
thing that they've opened up this sortof museum. It's a living museum.
You can touch a lot of things. They've got flight simulators. It's a
wonderful destination. And if anything,you can drive by and see some of
(19:56):
the actual rockets that they've got presentit out there lying down. These are
massive, massive, beautiful machines.And to think that Alon Musk and SpaceX
or ascending machines that are even bigger. Now, there was a bit of
an explosion just recently, but itwas such a beautiful failure. And I
know they're optimistic about it, andobviously it's just a step, but I
(20:18):
like the idea that our space cityis becoming space city even more and we're
attracting an enormous amount of talent becauseit takes so many talents from different areas.
And you were talking about the workprograms that you have for all these
youths, and your associations with bigcorporations means that these kids aren't just learning
how to read and catching up withthat, but they're actually coming into contact
(20:41):
with the opportunities that may secure theirprofessional future. Literally. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's about creating that.Yeah, that the connection. And
we have corporations that are coming tous asking us to get involved and with
them, and um, we createthat pathway and we're willing a partner.
So if there's someone out in youraudience that wants to consider something like that
(21:03):
too, then let's have that conversation. Yeah, so let's talk about the
summer jobs. How do you helpto place kids into into those You don't
actually run a summer job program,do you. We don't. We have
partnership with different organizations, companies thathave these opportunities. And course it's more
structured and all parties know that,so that we're able to help them with
(21:26):
writing the resume, yeah, practicinginterviewing for example, and then this we
have a funnel that that goes rightto that opportunity. Then, so and
so you're actually sort of standing init's you've got a big family at the
Boys and Girls Club of Greater Houston, right, that we do, and
we stand in the gap. Yeah, we stand in the gap of christ
(21:47):
season. Then we stand in thegap of the needs and during the summertime,
yeah, which is really what we'refocused on because that's what's coming up
right now. But you also youalso have programs during the year or two
right, Like you're a safe placefor the kids to go to after school
out of school time. Yeah,so that happens to being after school approximately
three to seven, and then duringthe summertime that's the eight five hours.
(22:11):
Yeah, and we've already mentioned thecost of this program is only twenty five
dollars. They actually have scholarships.That's a barrier of entry, but the
programs available, you know, it'sit's a one size fits also to speak,
you pay your you pay your adue, and you can send your
child to the club every day oronly on certain days. It's almost too
(22:33):
much to say. You can useit as as as a way to liberate
yourselves for other activities if you haveto go to a job or something like
that. And I like it's itseems like the club is completely open to
that and is happy to see thekids whenever they come in. So you
offer them a lot of flexibility.Basic, there's a trueness amount of flexibility.
Yeah. And we'll see this oftentimeswhen even some children are visiting grandparents
(22:57):
for example. Yeah, yeah,and and so we're of the club to
help them during that time frame too, so and and vice versa. Will
they'll be here for a while andthen they'll go see their grandparents and they
won't be here the entire summer.So um. If again, if you
when you go to our website atbgcgh dot org, you'll see all the
(23:17):
different club locations and the hours,um and find something that's close to you
and and you know, please stopbuy and visit and learn more about the
programs that are taking place. Andum, and there's even there's camps,
mini camps, if you will,worked in within the day as well.
So it may be maybe just fortwo hours if you have your child all
(23:37):
day and you're fine, but eight, you know, two hours times five
days, because we have that workstoo. It means a lot to the
kids and and so we are thatum that second family can't yes, your
first family, but it's really thesecond family. And that's what's the family
you choose. It's your friends.You know. We have a remarkable staff
(23:59):
that ensures that um they're having thatkind of experience. So it's a it's
a building with programs and services,but the secret sauce, if you will,
is really the um Our team that'sthere every day. That's that's working
with the young people. So youyou can demonstrate that the program is extremely
successful. There's nothing wrong with thekids. They just need to have a
(24:22):
safe environment where to do monkey seemonkey do things. Look. That's what
we are where a bunch of apesand that's how we learn. How do
do you You sit around and atyour coffee table sometimes and thinking about some
man. If I could just haveall the money and all the people I
need in the in the world toto scale up the program, what what
would you say we we actually need. Is it a lack of political will.
(24:45):
I feel like the city has themoney. We certainly have the talent,
the teachers, the mentors, noproblem, we have those. Yeah,
it's um to be responsible. Ismade sure that you can maintain your
ramming and what we do because wedo have to operate like a business like
everybody else, and so it's ensuringthat we have the financial resources because as
(25:08):
you've as we've discussed, the revenueisn't coming to us by way of the
child and the family. It's comingto us from the support of the community,
whether it's individuals or corporations, foundations, government agencies. So provided we
can create, when we open upsomething new, we look for that financial
(25:30):
sustainability to keep it, to keepit going. Don't want to take away
something after we've started it for ayear that that doesn't benefit anybody. That
speaks just to the longevity of knowingthat you're making a difference than made an
impact. So we have a lotof really rich people in this city,
and some of them sit around thinkingabout what they could do with their millions
(25:51):
of dollars. Could someone just callyou up and say, listen, I'd
like to fund the opening of anew club. Does that happen? Is
that how it happens? And andthen you would sit down with them and
see if it was possible to havethe money actually to open it and then
to run it. Yeah, wedefinitely we want people to call it.
We want inviting body to explore thatUM, that potential partnership. UM important
(26:15):
to know it's an investment and sothat's the investment of not only the capital,
but then it's also the annual operatingthat's that's required to continue to fund
a program in this case of Boysand Girls Club. So UM. You
know, we welcome that conversation,and it's also where the need is at
so UM and there's different ways todo that. UM. We do partner
(26:37):
with UM school sites as well,and so there that's our partnership with them
and their skin in the game isthe keep the lights on and take care
of all the janitorial services and allthat and security around there. And then
we identify partnerships with donors that wantto see the program happen. So whether
it's our free standing club, ourown and mortar, or it's a partnership
(27:00):
like with the school or Houston Allayand authority for example. Then we're able
to do programs and deliver have adelivery model more than one place. Yeah,
I want to maximize that. Yeah, you're also in touch with a
lot of other organizations with means thatif you have a kid who comes in
and you can identify that they havea need that you can't serve, maybe
they need furniture, you can callthe Houston Furniture Bank and help them out
(27:23):
that way. We don't we haven'tdiscussed that, but it's the connections that
allow the children to meet mentors,do better in school and then go on
to successful professional lives or the samesort of connections that that facilitate the making
their lives better right now, right, And there's certain level of programming we
(27:44):
can do, and so mental healthwell being is certainly top of mind with
but a lot, I mean,the need is just continue to show and
show more. And so while we'renot experts in that, we have partnerships
with organization that have those services andso we're that frontline. We're able to
identify that and so it's it's havinga direct connection to those who provide those
(28:12):
services, and in some cases wehave it designed so that those resources are
coming in to our club club locations, so we're trying to fill as many
gaps as we possibly can. Andyou know, folks, don't be discouraged.
You know, I was talking abouthow Millionaire could help to open a
new center, but all of uscould just go to the website and donate
(28:33):
five dollars because that would amount toa million dollars really quickly if we all
did that. But it's an importantaspect of it too. You know.
You you may not even have thetime to volunteer for an organization, any
nonprofit because of the place you arein your life, maybe you just had
a kid, But you can alwaysgo to bgcgh dot org and donate a
little money help them keep the lightson. But I think that we just
(28:56):
need to keep talking about it.Tell your friends that you're heard on the
radio that only thirty percent of thirdgraders in Houston can read at third grade
level. You take ten kids inHouston, and only three of them who
are in third grade can read atthat level. It's something we need to
talk about. And the more wetalk about it, the less of a
problem that will become because people arejust gonna go what that's ridiculous. I'll
(29:17):
help fund some of these programs thatare helping these kids long how to read,
like Boys and Girls Clubs of GreaterHouston. So, folks, if
you have any questions related to Houston, PA, you can just send me
an email. Texan from France atgmail dot com. Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I'm happy toanswer your question, even if it's simple
as apparently benign as asking for awebsite. I'm glad to send it to
(29:40):
you, and i want to thankyou for listening and caring about the issues
that put on this show. I'llbe here next week at the same time.
Folks. My name is Laurent Iam the Texan from France and this
has been Houston PA, Houston's publicaffairs show, Houston Strong
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