Boys & Girls Club gets new name, $2.8M grants

The Boys & Girls Club of Poplar Bluff is now the Boys & Girls Club of the Heartland. Along with the new name announced Thursday, the local group has received two new grants valued at a total of $2,884,290 over a five-year period for six sites.

The name change, along with the grants, will enable the group to expand services throughout not just Butler County, but the heartland.

As Executive Club Director Robbie Toth-Cosby annouced, the club’s new name, she shared, “we’re expanding possibilities. We’re throwing in opportunities and we’re reaching one part at a time.”

Prior to announcing the name change, project coordinator Penny Taylor shared she and Club CEO Chris Rushin did a needs analysis to apply for the 21st Century Learning Center Grant through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“This is a huge grant,” Taylor said. “ It’s a five year grant and we applied for six of our sites in this grant. I’m excited to announce that yesterday we were awarded both of the grants for all six of the sites.”

Taylor explained, in March, they submitted two applications: “one for O’Neal, Eugene Field, and Middle School, another for Junior High, Senior High, and Mark Twain. Out of 60 applicants, only 20 were awarded, with both of ours ranking No. 1 and No. 2. These grants are specific in providing funds for expanding programming and reaching the kids that need us the most.”

An exuberant Rushin explained, “COVID almost got us. We got smarter. We stepped up. Staff stepped up. We just did what our kids do each and every day, put one foot in front of the other and said ‘we’re gonna make it.’ Now we’re at our best point ever. It’s just so emotional for all of us what everyone has been through not just our club, the community, the town, the area.

Rushin said, the club began working with the Neelyville schools in the fall and “we’re going to be able to go into more of the area schools. We’re in talks with a number of different schools which we’re not ready to name right at this time. Parents in Neelyville, Twin Rivers, Dexter, Doniphan are just like parents in Poplar Bluff. They love their kids and they want the best for their kids. People don’t get to see it every day, but we do the amazing things that this club does for not only the kids, but their families, and for the entire community. We needed a name that just didn’t identify with my hometown, but with the whole area and the Heartland just seemed to fit perfectly.”

Terri McCormick, director of resource development and finance, said, “our mission is to enable all young people, especially those that need us the most to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens. We will continue to do whatever it takes to reach the kids that need us the most. So how do we do that? We expand our enrollment, which is the highest it’s ever been, sitting currently at 682 kids. As you know, Aug. 23, we opened up a new club site in Neelyville, and our future plan for the 2022-23 school year is to open more clubs in the surrounding areas.”

The significance of the name change is “we’re no longer just located in Poplar Bluff, we are expanding to other counties,” McCormick said. “So in order to do that, we didn’t really feel like we should keep the name for Boys and Girls like kids or anything like that.

McCormick said, officials had to go through all the legalities that changes with Boys and Girls Club of America. We started that process in June. So this has been an ongoing process. We knew we wanted to reach more kids in the community and the outskirt communities. Those are the kids who need us the most. So we started this name-changing process in June, and it is a long process you have to go through being accepted and go through a whole board.”

“The benefits for the change are we reach markets that are in the areas,” McCormick said. “Kids don’t necessarily have the opportunity to have an after-school program because they don’t have the transportation. We want to be able to take those kiddos home because a lot of those kids live on the outskirts. They don’t care. Parents don’t have transportation. So we want to be able to say, you know ‘you come. We’ll make sure we take you home.’ That’s why we bought those trolleys so that we could do that.