Boys and Girls Club receives grant for cooking club

Boys & Girls Club of Poplar Bluff is one of seven afterschool programs selected for Round 1 micro-grants for youth entrepreneurship programs during the 2020-21 school year.

Club Executive Director Chris Rushin credits TEEN Unit Director Robbie Toth with finding the grant, as well as keeping the teen club growing.

“This is all due to her outstanding efforts,” he said. “Nobody, nobody works harder and does more for the kids than Ms. Robbie.”

Rushin attributes the TEENS (Talented-Extraordinary-Educated-Noble Students) program expansion to Toth. “The kids know, love and respect Ms. Robbie. She is the first one at work and the last one to leave,” he said.

Toth, who has worked with the club since 2007, is modest about her efforts. She explained, she located the grant online and the club’s grant writers submitted the work.

She admits to involving the teens in planning activities.

“I ask the kids what their focus or their interests are,” she said.

They showed an interest in cooking, so they formed a cooking club, where they learn to make food, Toth said. After learning how to prepare the food, they go home and make the food for their parents and/or guardians.

The appliances, like the confection oven, microwave and pots and pans are outdated, she said.

They came up with an entrepreneurial project printing and selling T-shirts to fund upgraded kitchen equipment for the cooking club, she said.

The students are designing the T-shirts to try to raise money. They are in the design stage, but the students will transfer the designs onto the shirts. Once they get the orders together, Toth said, arrangements will be made for people to come to the club and pickup the shirts.

Toth said, the students came up with the name, adding “they are pretty awesome kids.”

To keep updated on the shirt project, Toth said, folks can go to the club’s Facebook since the project is a “work in progress.”

Monday’s announcement coincides with Global Entrepreneurship Week, Nov. 16-22, the world’s biggest celebration of entrepreneurship, with millions of event participants and awareness campaigns in 180 countries.

“It is great anytime our youth get a chance to experience career or skill opportunities. The more programs ,either through Boys & Girls Club or 4-H, are introduced. The wider dreams of our youth become,” John Fuller, Human Development and Family Sciences Specialist with the Butler County University Extension. The Missouri AfterSchool Network, housed in University of Missouri Extension’s 4-H Center for Youth Development.ther afterschool programs selected in this round include:

• Fair Play R-II Before/After School Program to design and implement a plastics recycling campaign as a social entrepreneurship project teaching environmental stewardship.

• Boys & Girls Club of the Ozarks to integrate entrepreneurship into its Career Launch program, engaging teens in creating and executing business plans to open and operate a club store.

• Green Works of Kansas City to engage Green Works Lab students in the design, development, production, marketing and sales of a dish soap bar in partnership with a local business that manufactures natural body care products.

• United by Creativity of Kansas City to empower students to create change in their world and earn money by learning how to plan, design and market a collaborative book showcasing their artwork and creative ideas.

• Mission: St. Louis to build upon its entrepreneurial initiatives by engaging Beyond School program students in an eight-week enrichment program culminating in a Young Entrepreneur Pitch Challenge.

• Neosho School District to expand upon a partnership with Crowder College and local entrepreneurs to engage students in exploring and experiencing entrepreneurship after school.

“These projects hold great potential to ignite students with an entrepreneurial mind set and to inspire them to take tangible steps toward their dreams and futures,” said Mark Cowsert, MASN associate director of policy and partnerships.

Cowsert said funded projects will improve access to entrepreneurship education for middle and high school students after school, particularly among students of color, female students and rural students – groups that are underrepresented among adult entrepreneurs. Leaders also point to the contributions the projects will make to workforce development, including linking students to resources for entrepreneurs in their local and regional communities.

“Missouri afterschool programs are providing wonderful opportunities for students to explore and experience being entrepreneurs,” said Terri Foulkes, executive director of the Missouri AfterSchool Network. “We are excited for how these projects build upon the themes of Global Entrepreneurship Week and will support students who choose an entrepreneurship pathway.”