Friday Post

Another week and month have come to a close here at the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Florida. On Wednesday, September 26, we had our "Gather Around the Table" event at Brio restaurant in St. Johns Towncenter. 20% of all proceeds that day went towards the Boys and Girls Club of Northeast Florida. Tracey and I got there around 10:30, and the restaurant was packed by 12. Brio is a big, beautiful restaurant and the wait for tables was over 30 minutes! We had a table set up and a few people came over to ask what was going on. We have yet to have the exact numbers in but I can only imagine that the event was a huge success. More information to come!

Today I am visiting my first Boys & Girls Club as an intern. I will be taking pictures and hopefully will get to meet and interact with some members! I'm excited to go and see a normal day at one of the clubs. I will post pictures and write about my experience sometime next week!

Everyone here at the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Florida wishes you and wonderful weekend, and don't forget to "be great"!

-Christy

SIARA Food & Wine Festival

On Saturday, September 30, the St. Augustine Independent Restaurant Association will host the Third Annual Food & Wine Festival to benefit THE PLAYERS Championship Boys & Girls Club in St. Augustine. This exciting event will celebrate local flare and feature over 100 wines and 18 restaurants on the beautiful grounds of the Council on Aging's River House. At the event, you will have the opportunity to enjoy signature dishes from each of the 18 restaurants and fine wines poured from all over the world, as you enjoy listening to music courtesy of The Mood.

Proceeds from the event will be used to extend programs and services to children in the West St. Augustine community, where our Boys & Girls Club is strategically located. Children in this neighborhood are at a greater risk of poverty, school failure, poor health outcomes and risky behaviors. For the children attending the Club, we offer an array of over forty research-based and field tested programs. Our aim is to not only save these young lives from the deadly alternatives on the streets, but to raise their sights and capabilities toward life at its best. By purchasing your ticket, you are making a significant difference in the life of a child.

To purchase tickets and for more information on this event, visit www.staugustinerestaurants.com/.

Day for Kids 2012

The Day for Kids turned out to be a great success for all of our members, every one had lots of fun! We had volunteers from the Jacksonville Junior League and Citibank come out to help with the event. Once Christy and I finally found the NFL YET club we enjoyed being able to interact with the members of the Boys & Girls Clubs! Christy was able to assist with monitoring one of the bounce houses while I took pictures for a majority of the day. The Day for Kids had activities including bounce houses, fooseball tables, pool tables and face painting. After all those activities, the kids and volunteers were treated to a lunch provided by FireHouse Subs and Panera Bread. For snacks throughout the day the kids were allowed to choose from popcorn, cotton candy, and sno-cones. All of the kids seemed to really enjoy the cotton candy! The members had many visitors through out the day including Jaxson de Ville and Madalyn from the Jacksonville ROAR!  Jaxson de Ville and Madalyn autographed pictures for the kids. I was able to meet Sargent Ruff of the Boys and Girls Clubs, he was a real hit with the kids. Captain Corn was also in attendance and was the DJ in the gymnasium at the NFL YET club! I loved being able to attend this event and interact with all of the members. I was a little surprised by the amount of teens that are members of the clubs, but all of them seemed to have plenty of fun socializing, snacking and playing games in the game room. One of my favorite memories about the Day for Kids was watching, Dr. Perry, the President of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida, dance to the Cupid Shuffle with the memebers! I look forward to my next event with the members of the Boys & Girls Clubs! If you would like to see more pictures from the event you can take a look at our facebook page! Remember you can Be Great with Boys & Girls Clubs!





Friday Post

What a busy week it has been at the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Florida! Both Tracey and I had events to go to this week where we learned a lot and were introduced to a few people. On Wednesday, I  went to the Association of Fundraising Professionals Program Meeting with our Director of Development, Darby Studderfield. There we listened as David Odahowski from the Eydth Bush Charitable Foundation spoke about morals and ethics within organizations. On Thursday, Tracey attended a 'LinkedIn for Business' class where she took fantastic notes so she could teach all of us here the benefits and features in using LinkedIn. Tomorrow we have the 'Day for Kids' event at The Player's Club. We are all very much looking forward to spending the day with the kids and having fun ourselves.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and don't forget to BE GREAT!

Christy Goodman
Development Intern

Duval County Health Fair

On Friday, September 7, the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Florida was lucky enough to participate at the Duval County Health Fair at the Schultz Center here in Jacksonville. With other non-profits there, I got to set up a table with brochures, pins, and our national newsleter while answering any and all questions that people had in regards to the Boys & Girls Club and our local clubs in the area. There was a nice turnout and people seemed to be genuinly interested about what BGCNF does, how parents can enroll their children to become members, and information about possibly becoming a volunteer. It was a lot of fun interacting with so many people who appreciate what the Boys & Girls Club does and who wanted to get involved. Here are some pictures I took from the fair.