How The Boys And Girls Clubs Of America Is Supporting Military Families And Youths

Two million children, a staggering number, currently have at least one parent serving in the U.S. Armed Services. It's no surprise that military life can be challenging, even under optimum circumstances, often impacting most acutely upon the children of those in uniform. A big stressor is the need to pull up stakes constantly – military kids move six to nine times before they graduate high school, leaving behind friends, school and the community ties which help to forge a sense of stability, even during unstable times.

According to the American Psychological Association, constant moves can be a source of extreme anxiety for children and damage the quality of life they experience later on, as adults. For military families, this all too constant stress is compounded further by pressures and emotions, endemic to military life.

Forging Community through Consistency

When an individual opts in to serve our country, their families opt in too, but often, this sacrifice goes unacknowledged. As an answer, Raytheon and Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) have joined forces to establish Centers of Innovation, a cutting-edge program launching this fall.

Six Centers of Innovation will become operational in Boys & Girls Clubs on military installations or within communities that serve military families. The Centers will morph high-tech programming with high-touch mentoring, a powerful combination geared towards providing military kids with deep immersion in STEM subjects via utilization of high-definition video conferencing, 3D printers and other leading-edge tools specific to science, technology, engineering and math. These will be led by full-time expert mentors offering individual support as well as group management.

The Centers will provide a safe and consistent presence, allowing kids the opportunity to grasp something familiar when they land in a new place. The initial locations for the Centers of Innovation will be:

• Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, CA
• Fort Hood, Killeen, TX
• Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, AL
• Aberdeen Proving Ground, Aberdeen MD
• Andrews Air Force Base, Camp Springs, MD
• Ramstein Air Base, Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany

Creating Change by Thinking Great

The Centers, funded through a $5 million, multi-year commitment from Raytheon, are part of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America's Great Futures Campaign, a completely unique initiative program geared toward supporting the educational success of American youth, with a strong focus on the children of military personnel. Pivotal to the campaign is BGCA's Great Think Series, a compendium of think tank gatherings bringing together stake holders from the worlds of academia, business, the military, media, non-profit sphere and the military, to pinpoint and discuss the specific challenges American youth face and to determine the best solutions.

The first event in 2013 was BGCA's Military Great Think, focused solely on military kids. The concept for the Centers was launched at that time. The action-specific findings, presented in a white paper released by BGCA, included recommendations that have been encapsulated into the Center's formation. They included:

• The establishment of preventative and proactive support programs prior to deployment which continue throughout duration of the tour of duty
• Development of a centralized network able to integrate military families living off installation with programs already available on bases
• Creation of meaningful after-school programs for military youth to help them overcome the types of academic challenges associated with constant moves and emotional upheaval
• A deep concentration on STEM and STEM-related subjects.

When corporate and non-profit America merge, powerful results such as these are possible. Benefiting greatly are not only the kids in military families, but also our country and collective future.