Earlier today, I remembered the announcement made this past season about the alliance with FIRST and the Boys and Girls Club. The following are FRC teams sponsored by the Boys and Girls Club.
1137 from Mathews, VA
3557 from Brandon, FL
3609 from South Portland, ME
3623 from Leominster, MA
3703 from Denver, CO
3730 from Dallas, TX
4050 from Chambersburg, PA
4088 from Port Charlotte, FL
4195 from Rome, GA
4197 from Dade City, FL
4245 from Henderson County, NC
—Rookies—
4498 from Sacramento, CA
4690 from Indianapolis, IN
I know there are probably many teams in Jr FLL, FLL, and FTC sponsored by the Boys and Girls Club. It is sad that even with this new alliance there are only 2 rookie teams sponsored by them.
Are these teams based out of Boys and Girls Club facilities? (in which case an alliance of some kind must have existed for a while as some of these teams are several years old).
All I can say is that they are sponsored by the Boys and Girls Club.
Chances are, for most if not all veteran teams, they were given money and built somewhere else. Maybe a couple built at Boys and Girls Club, but not many.
I’ll check for more details later.
In August, I communicated with Debbie Davis, VP of Government Relations at the Boys and Girls Club (this was after working my way up the food chain). This was her response to my inquiry regarding the status of a collaboration between B&G Club and FIRST:
Right now we are just starting to educate our Clubs (we have 4,000 across the country) about FIRST and their programs. We are doing that at a series of Leadership Conferences that will take place this fall. Currently we do not have any pass through funding for our Clubs for this initiative (which is our goal), so it will roll out slowly. At this point it is up to each individual Club as to whether they will implement the program or not, but our goal is to have 75% of all Clubs participating in the next 5 years, assuming we secure the funding to do so.
Well we are based in a boys and girls club and sponsored by our club, but I guess we arnt sponsored by the boys and girls club. Do you know how we could apply for funds?