Type of service: Youth development organization
Connecticut employees: 95 employees; 200 volunteers
Headquarters: Hartford
Top executive: Sam Gray, president & CEO
Winning category: Nonprofit organization of the year
Sam Gray chuckled when asked how long he has been with the Boys & Girls Clubs.
“I’ve been a club kid since I was eight,” he said. “I kept coming back. After I finished school, I was volunteering at my club in Richmond, Virginia so much that one day, someone asked me if I’d be interested in a career with the Boys & Girls Clubs. I laughed and said, ‘You mean, you want to pay me to have fun?’ I’ve been here ever since.”
That was 20 years ago. Today, Gray is president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford, a position he has held for the past two and a half years. In total, he has spent 10 years at the Hartford club. He knows first-hand the important role the Boys & Girls Clubs play in helping shape the lives of local youths.
It is a role that the Hartford club has played for a long time. In fact, the Hartford club, founded in 1860, is the oldest Boys & Girls Club in the nation. This year marks its 150 year anniversary.
“We really look at three priority outcomes as an organization,” Gray said, “how we can increase academic success for the kids, how we can influence their citizenship and how we can increase healthy lifestyles. If we really focus on those three areas, we will achieve our mission to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens.”
The Hartford Boys & Girls club has stayed true to its 150-year-old mission of guiding youths and providing them with a sense of purpose, direction and self confidence. What has changed is its reach.
Today, the Hartford club includes 10 locations in Hartford. They provide programs designed to build individual character, leadership and citizenship, physical fitness, academic success, drug and alcohol use prevention and more. More than 1,000 city youths, ages 6 to 18, walk through their doors each day. In total, youth membership numbers about 4,000, but Gray estimates that the number of area youths who are influenced by the Boys & Girls clubs in some way is double that figure.
The club has expanded over the years to form many partnerships with local schools and other organizations. “We’re in Hartford’s Global Communications, Dwight Elementary, Parkville Community and Simpson Waverly schools,” he said. The partnerships help provide the young students with after-school activities, including academic tutoring and other advantages that might not otherwise be available.
In 1998, the Hartford club formed a partnership with Hartford’s Trinity College, the first college-club partnership of its kind in the nation and has expanded to include the University of Connecticut, the Children’s Museum and many others.
“It’s really all about our kids, bringing out their potential and helping them believe in themselves. It’s been a great 150 years for the organization and I’m excited about the next 150. As long as we create quality programs, the kids will keep on coming,” said Gray.
