To the Editor:

Last year, when I was heading up The Boys & Girls Clubs of Warwick (BGCW) Great Futures Campaign for the first time, I asked you to think about the highlights of your own childhood. I reminded you that for over 1,400 kids in Warwick, the highlights of their lives include the time they spend after school and during summer vacation at the BGCW facilities in Norwood and Oakland Beach. And I reached out to ask you and others to support the 2016 Great Futures Campaign and help BGCW continue its essential role in the community support system for our city.

Well, the mission of BGCW must be very important to all of you, because last year we pulled together and raised over $100,000 for BGCW programs through the 2016 Great Futures Campaign! With those funds, BGCW was able to provide sports programs, homework assistance, computer training, and summer camp to the children in our neighborhoods. More than that, BGCW was able to provide a second home for many kids – a place of support and comfort while their parents were at work, a place of respect and warmth with a personal touch that is crucial to making our kids the successful next generation that our city needs. I want to thank you for your understanding and generosity over the past year!

But the work of BGCW is never constrained to a single set of kids, or to any single year. That’s why, when BGCW asked me to serve as chair of the Great Futures Campaign for another year, I felt compelled to say yes. As a mother of two young girls, I see the challenges facing Warwick kids every day, and I want to do everything I can to give their peers the encouragement they need to fulfill their potential. And that’s why I’m asking all of you, again, to help make this year’s 2017 Great Futures Campaign even more successful than last year’s.

We have a lot going on at BGCW. In addition to all of our continuing programs, we’re embarking on a mission to develop a new teen center in Warwick, the first of its kind for our city. This is both a huge opportunity and a daunting task, one that requires the help and coordination of the City of Warwick, everyone at BGCW, and the entire community. But we’re so excited at what this new teen center could bring to Warwick. It will allow us to extend our work with our city’s kids into the teen years when they need us most, providing them with a bridge from our youth programs, through their middle school and high school years, to their college and working lives. We know there’s a gap to be filled in helping our city’s teens, and BGCW is the right organization to fill that gap!

Yet in order to pursue our new teen center and at the same time keep our wonderful existing programs going, we need your help! I’d like to ask you to please join me in giving to this year’s 2017 Great Futures Campaign today. $25 provides snacks for 1 week, $50 provides school supplies for 1 month, and $125 provides 1 week of summer camp. Any amount helps us move our teen center project ahead. I know it’s difficult, especially following the holidays, to find extra funds to give to even the neediest causes. But I want to emphasize that our core Warwick institutions, like BGCW, have been there for us all through thick and thin, and I think it’s my responsibility to be there for them whenever I am able. I hope you’ll feel the same yourselves. Please visit www.wbgclubs.org to donate on-line, or call 467-4385 to speak with someone on the BGCW staff about the campaign, or email me at slvp21@gmail.com if I myself might be of help.

My sincere thanks and appreciation for your support!

Stephanie Van Patten

2017 Great Futures Campaign Chair

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Warwick