Sean C. Morgan
For the first time since the merger of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sweet Home and Lebanon in 2008, the organization is in the black, according to executive director Kris Latimer.
That development has come as a result of an outpouring of support from Sweet Home residents and businesses for the Sweet Home branch last year.
Latimer said club leaders made the decision at the end of 2014 “to look at our incomes and our budgets separately for each community, so that we could really determine where our income was coming, why we were not meeting our income goals, and continuing to operate in the red year in and year out. That led us to discover that we were way behind on income in Sweet Home to support the operation.”
In early 2015, the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Santiam went to the Sweet Home community with the problem and formed a branch council for Sweet Home.
“Our annual giving campaign ‘It Just Takes One’ was successful,” said Sweet Home Branch Committee Chairman Ron Moore. “That is the main driver we need to continue to focus on.”
Latimer said the local committee was formed “because we really heard from the community that people felt very disenfranchised by the merger.
“So they didn’t feel like they understood what was going on in the building. They just didn’t feel like they had ownership anymore. That’s what we heard from donors. So we developed the branch council so there would be individuals in Sweet Home who on a regular basis would have an opportunity to see the budget, see the income, see where money was going and know and understand on a more detailed level what the program offerings and activities were.”
As of the end of 2014, the number of Sweet Home residents on the Greater Santiam board had dwindled to just one, Jason Armstrong. Today, the board includes Sweet Home members Moore, Scott Melcher, Armstrong, Nicole Forbes and Jared Cornell, who works in Sweet Home.
The branch council has 10 members. Moore and Melcher are co-chairmen.
“They really helped us when we did our big community meeting and had the conversation, put the numbers out there,” Latimer said of the pair. “This is what it costs to operate the Boys and Girls Club, with the after-school program and the athletics. This is what’s coming in income.”
Latimer researched other clubs serving multiple communities, she said. They told her they expect their communities to support their branches at 100 percent.
“The board made the decision to ask Sweet Home to at least fund 50 percent of operation up there,” Latimer said. “So that meant raising $120,000 in individual giving, so that’s you, me and John Q. Public pledging to give a total of $120,000 over the course of the year. The goal for auction was $109,000.”
The club exceeded that goal, raising $129,000, she said. Individual giving didn’t meet the club’s goal, raising $102,000. Combined, Sweet Home met its funding goal, 50 percent, for the current fiscal year, which runs from July to June.
Many individuals and businesses, among them Subway, A&W, The Point Restaurant and Thriftway, stepped up in Sweet Home – especially loggers, Latimer said.
“If it weren’t for the loggers, we would really be way off on individual giving. They have carried a major part of the load. We’re super grateful for the support of business and industry in Sweet Home and the individuals who signed up to give monthly or have made a pledge.”
The club has also increased fees, but that change didn’t really affect the bottom line. The annual fee increased to $30 in 2014. The branch council increased the after-school program fee from $5 to $20 per month in 2015. But that fee was set on a sliding scale based on income.
With the number of children at the $5 fee and with a decrease in the number of children attending, it hasn’t raised additional money.
The club also increased athletic fees with the goal of athletic programs paying for themselves, Latimer said. That goal would have meant much larger increases though, so at this point, the fees pay for 50 percent of the athletic programs.
And costs keep going up, she said.
In addition to raising revenue, the branch committee also cut spending, eliminating the Sweet Home branch director position.
“We’re building a foundation, and we feel comfortable we’ll be able to build off of that and continue services as they are,” Latimer said.
“Last year, we did say, if you don’t help us fund it, we’re going to have to close it or really dramatically change it. We aren’t going to say that again, obviously, but if giving drops way off and we can’t bring it back up, that’s our biggest concern. The amount that we need to raise in the community is only going to increase because the cost of living is going up for everybody.
“This year will kind of be the litmus test, I guess. Is Sweet Home truly committed to funding this or was it a blip? If it was a blip, we have thought through some alternatives that could create something different, but we’re committed to providing our model of Boys and Girls Club services in Sweet Home and Lebanon.
“I really feel like we’re in a good spot. We finished the calendar year in the black the first time since the merger (and Lebanon had been in the black for several years before that), and we’re forecasting at the end of the budget year, we’ll be in the black. So as long as we can keep the organization out of the red, then we can continue to work with Sweet Home to support the program.”
Sweet Home had a lot of people step up above and beyond, Moore said, but Sweet Home is still not there. If 1,000 households committed just $10 a month, it would be.
As an emergency action, “we were able to do that one year,” Moore said. “We need to be able to do that year in and year out.”
The club will continue to host annual meetings to let people know what’s going on financially, he said. His goal is for the organization to regain trust and the support to sustain it at a cost of about $10,000 per month.
“The auction and grants won’t sustain us,” Moore said. “We have to have some sustainability from our community. We’ve proven we can be smart with what we’re given. We still need people in the community to support us.
“I would like to thank the community for their efforts in keeping the club alive, and I’m excited about where we’re headed.”
The club will host a meeting at 6 p.m. on Feb. 11 at the Sweet Home Branch to outline the state of the club to the Sweet Home club. The meeting will be similar to the community meeting last year, with officials sharing information for 2014 and 2015, including expenses and income.
“We’ll talk through a little bit about what the program offerings are, the after-school programs and athletics,” Latimer said. They’ll also talk about the new IHN project.
For more information about the club, call (541) 367-6421 in Sweet Home or (541) 258-7105 in Lebanon.