SEQUIM — At midnight Thursday, memberships expired for all 754 youngsters who belong to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.
Their guardians will, of course, be asked to renew those memberships by paying the annual dues of $30 — the same amount as in 2009.
But as the Sequim and Port Angeles clubs struggle with a revenue shortfall at the close of 2009, Executive Director Bob Schilling hears a frequently asked question: Why aren’t parents asked to pay more for their kids’ memberships?
The answer, Schilling said, is simple.
Community supported
“Our clubs are meant to be community-supported, not fee-supported,” according to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America charter.
And Mary Budke, unit director of the Sequim club, said she will not turn any child away, whether the parent can pay the fee or not.
Sequim’s club has 591 members on its books; the Port Angeles unit has 163, Budke said, adding that those are probably a little under the real numbers of kids pouring in after school.
The clubs, then, enjoy great popularity among parents and children. But their community fundraising efforts haven’t done as well.
Fundraisers
The annual dinner and auction on Nov. 14 reaped $110,000 — $25,000 less than projected. The Campaign for Kids, another drive for local donations, fell $32,000 short of its $95,000 goal.
On the positive side, the teen club at the Sequim unit was awarded $60,000 from the city of Sequim, plus $42,500 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding; the two sums are to be spent in 2010.
But the actual checks are not in Schilling’s hands. Those monies will be paid out quarterly, he said.
Meantime, the clubs suffer from what Schilling calls a cash-flow problem because their heavy-hitting fundraisers, the November auction and the Campaign for Kids, happen mostly during the latter half of the year.
First-quarter event
The clubs are in need of a first-quarter event, and a big one, Schilling said.
He and his board of directors are brainstorming ideas for a fundraiser that could debut this February and, Schilling hopes, grow each year.
The 2010 budget for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula projects $963,000 in operating expenses, Schilling said.
$4,000 a day
“It takes $4,000 a day to keep the clubs open,” Monday through Friday.
The organization must also have at least a small cushion, so 2010’s revenue goal is set at $975,000, Schilling added.
“To continue the services and programs that the communities of Sequim and Port Angeles are accustomed to receiving,” that’s what he and his board and staff must raise.
Cost cutting
Failing that, “there’s nothing left but to reduce club hours,” Schilling said, and close the clubs one day a week or more.
That would obviously cause hardship to the clubs’ 35 staff people and to the hundreds of youngsters who come to the club daily.
Meantime, Schilling has already found areas to reduce program and staff costs.
While core offerings such as the Power Hour homework-help program, computer-room activities and the “Smart Girls” and “Passport to Manhood” programs are still in place, others such as the Club to Kitchen cooking course have been cut.
Also, transportation and facilities manager Jim Hall is out on medical leave at least until March, and if he’s unable to return, Schilling said he won’t fill that position.
Building repairs, maintenance of club buses and bus advertising sales were Hall’s tasks the remaining staff may have to assume.
Yet Schilling, as befits the director of a youth organization, insists on optimism.
“We’re asking the communities of Port Angeles and Sequim to support their clubs in 2010,” he said. “And collectively, we’re going to make it.”
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
