Making Minutes Count helps Club members ages 6-18 achieve academic success by providing homework help, tutoring, and high-yield learning activities and encouraging members to become self-directed learners.

Designed specifically to help kids and teens with homework, this program is available after school at Clubs. Dedicated youth development professionals and volunteers supervise each session and help youth members complete their assignments for the day. When they finish their work, they may choose to participate in a variety of other engaging and educational activities to develop their skills even further.

Power Hour is a great opportunity for kids and teens to get their homework completed in a quiet place with support from trained, caring staff at a Boys & Girls Club.

Project Learn reinforces the academic enrichment and school engagement of young people during the time they spend at the Club.

Students do much better in school when they spend their non-school hours engaged in fun, but academically beneficial, activities. Through Project Learn, Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for these high-yield learning activities, including leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help, tutoring and games that develop young people’s cognitive skills. Project Learn also emphasizes parent involvement as well as collaboration between Club and school professionals.

While learning to code, imitating algorithmic processes, and designing original technologies, members build key social and emotional skills like teamwork, perseverance, and the ability to identify and solve problems

The CS Pathway is designed to guide members through a series of increasingly challenging activities, including:

• Hour of Code: Youth are exposed to computer science through accessible, drag and drop coding and games.
• CS Unplugged: Youth gain a conceptual understanding of computer science through low-tech group activities.
• App Lab: Youth work in teams to design, develop and present original ideas for Apps.

Digital Literacy Essentials activities are designed to help youth ages 8-16 build digital skills. They provide members of all ability levels with a foundation to explore digital safety, digital privacy, digital presence, online communication and retro gaming.

Diplomas2Degrees (d2D), a college readiness program, guides Club members as they work toward high school graduation and prepare for post-secondary education and career success. d2D helps teens develop both short- and long-term goals, while familiarizing them post-secondary education through experiences like college tours. It also assists youth in securing financial aid and fosters supportive relationships with adults who can provide support throughout the college experience.

DIY STEM is a hands-on, activity-based STEM curriculum which connects youth aged 9 to 12 to science themes they encounter regularly. Special attention is paid to connections of theory and application and the common interactions members have with these scientific principles. DIY STEM currently includes five modules: Energy and Electricity, Engineering Design, Food Chemistry, Science of Sports: Football.

DIY STEM provides youth who might otherwise not have access to STEM experiences with simple, fun, hands-on activities. Exposure to science, technology, engineering and math is critical during the tween years, when young people’s natural curiosity drives interest and builds capacity for success in these disciplines.

The financial decisions that young people make today will impact their future. That’s why Boys & Girls Clubs pair youth with supportive Club mentors and volunteers to develop the financial skills that can lead to workplace readiness, lifelong financial stability and overall success.

Summer Brain Gain is comprised of one-week modules with fun, themed activities for elementary school, middle school, and high school students that are aligned with common core anchor standards. Supported by Disney, each module takes a project-based learning approach: youth engage in a process of learning through discovery, creative expression, group work, and a final project or production. As a result, kids develop higher-order thinking skills through the Summer Brain Gain modules while staying on track for the coming school year.

Ultimate Journey, one of BGCA’s legacy programs that has been around for over 20 years and one of our most successful STEM programs, is back! Ultimate Journey is BGCA’s environmental education program, created in partnership with the National Park Service. It is a hands-on STEM curriculum, designed for ages 9-13 (4th-8th grade), and totally revamped for the 21st century. It is super flexible, designed to last for eight weeks with two to four activities per week, though Clubs can easily break it up. Each activity also has variations and options, so Clubs can adapt it to multiple age groups, and with or without the technology components.

Throughout the program, Club Members learn great STEM content, but also practice problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Club Members will do deep thought work about their communities and their history, as well as the impact they can have on the future. They will do research, they will write, they will practice presenting, they will explore careers, they will be creative, they will work in groups, and they will have so much fun learning about our wonderful home and environment! Ultimate Journey cultivates an awareness and appreciation of the natural wonders that surround young people. Ultimate Journey introduce young people to aspects of environmental stewardship, and meet the need of youth from urban, rural, military and native settings. The journey continues on!