Episode 60: Gary Beatty (Watertown Boys and Girls Club)

Meet Gary Beatty! He's the Executive Director of the Watertown Boys and Girls Club. In this conversation he shares about his experience growing up in Northern Ireland, his love of football (soccer) and how it led him to the US, and his professional path that eventually landed him at the Boys and Girls Club. Then we dig into all the programming at the club, how it operates, its impact on community kids and families, and its brand new Kid Connect licensed after school program.

Find out more about the Boys and Girls Club at watertownbgc.org

Transcript

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Matt: 0:07

Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This time I sat down with Gary Beatty, who is the Executive Director of the Watertown Boys and Girls Club. I'll let him introduce himself, then we'll get into the conversation.

Gary: 0:32

So my name is Gary Beatty. I am the executive director here at the Watertown Boys and Girls Club in Watertown. I've been in that position since October of 2022, so coming up to my three year anniversary. I'm originally from Northern Ireland, but have been living here in Massachusetts since 2002, when I first came over to work in youth soccer, believe it or not.

Matt: 0:47

Okay, so yeah, let's go back there then. So what was it like growing up in Ireland versus, you know, you see the youth here in the United States, so what's the difference there?

Gary: 0:55

So very contrasting experiences with my own youth. So I grew up in a small town in South County Derry, Northern Ireland, called Macara. By Northern Ireland standards, a sizable town. I was born in 1980. And as I was going up through the 80s our population in town was probably somewhere about 2,500 people, which again for Irish standards, is a pretty decent size town. Compared to the US, obviously very small town, maybe a village by US standards.

Gary: 1:20

So growing up in Northern Ireland, interesting experience for anyone that knows our country's very complicated history. 70s into the 80s were really the prime years of the troubles in Northern Ireland, the conflict which thankfully came to a bit of a head in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement. But so I grew up in a Protestant household in a predominantly nationalist and Catholic town. Went to a secondary school, a grammar school in Macrafeld, a neighboring town, which was what we would call co-ed, in that it was Protestants and Catholic kids together, rather than male or female. Which was a wonderful experience and I feel very fortunate.

Gary: 1:57

I grew up in a family that really was not particularly political or even particularly religious, in truth. So we were brought up in a household without a lot of the prejudices that I guess might exist in certain households, in certain communities within the country. Loved my childhood, was the middle of three boys. I have an older brother that's two years older than me, Mark, and a younger brother two years younger, Alan. So very male-dominated household. My father was incredibly active in the world of football, or soccer as we call it here in the US.

Matt: 2:27

How long did it take you to get used to that?

Gary: 2:30

Not long. You know, it's funny with my own kids now I still call it football and it's a bit of a running joke that we call it football in this house. But no, I got acclimated pretty quickly to calling it soccer. Those terms are interchangeable. Now when I go back home if I make the mistake of dropping the word soccer, then yeah, I'm going to take pelters from everybody. So I have to be careful whenever I have occasion to visit home.

Gary: 2:50

But yeah, so I grew up in a household where my father was, grew up as a football player, a soccer player. By the time I reached my primary school age, five, six, seven years of age, he had stopped playing and moved into more of the volunteer boardroom area. So he was the chairman of a couple of local clubs that we as brothers would go to every Saturday. We'd tag along and go to the games. So very much was immersed in the world of football as a kid growing up. We're a Manchester United family. I still am to this day a lifelong passionate Manchester United supporter, despite close to 15 years of hard times at the club at this point.

Matt: 3:26

It's in the blood, it doesn't matter.

Gary: 3:27

It is, it's absolutely in the blood and that is now being transferred on to my own kids. But grew up again very passionate about football. Our secondary school was a grammar school, so most grammar schools in Ireland actually play rugby. So I did for a brief period of time try to be a rugby player, but was neither physically very big or had a lot of pace so I was not, I was not particularly well set up for that sport. I was fortunate in that our year at school had a very small class of boys. So we had 105 kids in our class at school. Only 30 something of those were boys and, you know, our rugby team is made up of 20 something kids so I ended up being able to play for a couple of years, but ultimately transitioned back into football being my number one activity. So I started playing in men's leagues when I was 16 and then got into the world of coaching. Did some of my licenses through the Irish Football Association in Northern Ireland and was qualified, and I'm qualified, as a UEFA B license coach. And really was interested in the possibility of pursuing work as a coach.

Gary: 4:26

Again, it was my number one passion in life at that point in time. I was never good enough to be a professional player, but really wanted to see, is there an opportunity to make a living in football. That's very, very hard to do in Ireland and even the UK as a whole. It's a very competitive world and opportunities are few and far between.

Gary: 4:42

So I happened upon one time reading the Sunday papers, a very small advertisement by a company from Massachusetts that were looking for British and Irish coaches to come over and work in their club program. So I did an interview that, the founders of that organization were actually both from Northern Ireland, and I ended up doing an interview with one of their employees who was also from Northern Ireland, and had an opportunity to come out and do a short stint with that company in year one. I really enjoyed that experience. They liked what I did. So you know we went through multiple years of having H2 visas where I would come over as a seasonal worker. And that eventually led to a longer term visa, an H1 visa, which is for more highly qualified professionals in a particular field.

Gary: 5:24

So I was with that company for six or seven years and that led to me then eventually taking on a role working for myself as the director of coaching with Newton Girls Soccer in the late 2000s. And I should say that during this time, in my second year of working for this organization, is when I met my now wife. So she was also working for that same club as an assistant coach. So we met through that and our romance started and by the time 2009 came around, she and I were married. With that comes the freedom of being able to find my own employment and just opened a lot more doors for me. So football has really been the gateway of my life in the US and has led to what is now 23 plus years of just loving living in the area and calling this place home. So it's been a bit of a journey.

Matt: 6:10

Yeah, interesting. So when you came, when you were living here, were you living in Newton, or where did you first live?

Gary: 6:15

Waltham. So yeah, the club was based out of a, believe it or not, so they had like a rented house in Waltham. So myself and a bunch of other guys from the UK and Ireland, it was a bit of a fraternity house is what it felt like.

Matt: 6:25

I was going to say, I’m sure that was an environment.

Gary: 6:28

Yeah, but it was a lot of fun when you're in the early 20s, like you didn't really care. We weren't making a ton of money doing that, by the way, at this point in time, but you know we had enough to keep ourselves alive and to eat and to go out and have some beers at the weekends, which we all love to do when we weren't working. But it was a lot of hard work but a lot of fun at that point in time. But it was certainly very much a younger man's game and a younger man's lifestyle. So, as I get into my late 20s and again had this relationship with my wife Jan going on, clearly that was not going to be a long-term plan. So thankfully it led to other opportunities for me to be able to make a bit more money and have a bit more flexibility and freedom in my schedule, and that's obviously been important as we've grown a little older together and started a family.

Gary: 7:08

So, yeah, but it was a lot of fun, really really enjoyed it. And the sport was really coming to some level of organization at that point in time. Like the youth soccer numbers have grown massively over the last 20 years and I kind of feel like I came along at a time that was really at the forefront of when that explosion was happening and was there kind of for its infancy. And it has become a monster of its own, the youth soccer, particularly club soccer, has become an absolute massive industry, which is both good and bad. I don't necessarily miss being in that world whenever I see a lot of what kind of goes on. But I felt that I was there for like a really good period of time when it was just kind of coming into prominence.

Matt: 7:46

Yeah, so how did you jump from soccer to? Was the Boys and Girls Club your first thing outside of the soccer world?

Gary: 7:54

No, it wasn't. So there's been a couple of things in between that. So, you know, I was coaching for this club for, you know, the first seven years of being here. Then I spent three wonderful years as the director of coaching of Newton Girls Soccer, which is the largest girls community soccer program in the state of Massachusetts. When I was doing that back in those years we had something like 1,300 girls playing in Newton and the boys program was its own entity and they had something like 1,600 boys. So obviously the city of Newton is massive. So I did that for three years, again working as my own boss, working as essentially my own entity as a third-party vendor for Newton Girls Soccer.

Gary: 8:31

Through my career as a coach with both the club and Newton Girls Soccer, I had made some personal relationships with families. And one of the families that I was very close with, the parent manager of my team within the club that I was coaching for, you have a coach and then you had a parent manager that would do all the admin and send out the emails and track attendance availability. So through that I met Mike, Mike Stoller, who became a bit of a mentor to me and really is probably the closest thing to me having family over here without actually being family. So he and I developed a really close relationship and he was really interested in pursuing the potential of developing sports facilities. So prior to the market crash in 2008, 2009, I had been doing some work with him in preparation for the development of what would have been full sized indoor and outdoor soccer fields. But not one off fields, we're talking about having like six outdoor fields and one or two full-size indoor 11v11 soccer fields. So it was kind of ramping up with the indoor soccer business, which had started to kind of grow at that point in time. And we were really excited about those plans and we had three different locations that were lined up, including right here in Watertown with a parcel of land close to what's now, I think is it Repton Place, the housing development over in Pleasant Street. But unfortunately then the market tanked, all of the you know potential investment money that we had lined up to do that kind of went away and he had to put the whole thing on the back burner. But through that he had maintained an interest in getting involved in indoor sports facilities. So he had an opportunity to take on a facility in Mansfield, which was predominantly a basketball facility. It had four indoor basketball courts and an indoor turf field. So we took that on and we did run that for five years as a tenant in that building. Unfortunately, the economics of that business for the landowner, the building owner, didn't make as much sense as having it just be storage, warehouse storage. So eventually you know the rent for that just priced us out of it. So after five years it's now 2018, 2019, whenever that wrapped up.

Gary: 10:37

But the same gentleman, Mike, who owned that company also was very much involved in senior living. So through my relationship with him I had an opportunity to transition and spent four years working in the assisted living industry. So I went from working with kids and youth soccer athletes, both as a soccer coach and then through this indoor sports facility, to suddenly working with folks at the opposite end of the age spectrum. Yeah, so I did that for four years, two years as a business office director, which is really more of an administrative position, and then I actually did two years as an executive director of the community right here in Watertown, the Residence at Watertown Square, which I really enjoyed. It was a very informative experience.

Gary: 11:15

I think, having done that for four years, it just solidified for me that I really felt like I needed to and wanted to work with kids rather than adults. And, as it happens, the Boys and Girls Club executive director position was vacant at that point in time. I saw that, you know, very kind of late in the process, but put an application in for it and managed to get into the interview process and, lo and behold, after multiple interviews, was offered the position, which I was thrilled with. And again, that was October of 2022. And I've been here since and I've loved it, really am loving every minute of it.

Matt: 11:49

Yeah, did you have experience with Boys and Girls Club before then? Because were your kids old enough at that point, or?

Gary: 11:55

So my, so again, this is coming towards, not that the pandemic ever really, I guess, truly ended, but in 2022, there had started to be a shift back to some normality, kids had returned to school. But during the COVID years my daughter actually came and did her remote schoolwork here at the club, so she was old enough to do that. My son at that point in time was still young. He was in a preschool daycare program. So I was somewhat familiar with the club.

Gary: 12:18

But this was a time when it was just exclusively drop the kid off at the door, come back and pick them up. So I didn't really know much about the inner workings of the club. So I didn't know a lot about it, or the Boys and Girls Club movement, as the folks that work within the organization tend to refer to it as. But very quickly got caught up. I was vaguely aware of what they were doing, but within my, you know, the first three to six months of being in the job it was really immersive, got a lot of exposure not just to other clubs in the area but a lot of help from the Boys and Girls Club Association, the nationwide organization.

Gary: 12:49

So very quickly got caught up about what the organization was, what its mission was, who the kids are that we serve, how the program operates, how your staff operates. So yeah, learned a lot within that first six to 12 months. Kind of came into it a bit cocky, thinking that it would take me six months to kind of get it down pat, and that was not the case. You know, I'm here close to three years and there's still some things that I'm learning on a week by week basis. But really it took me closer to 18 months to two years before I felt like, okay, I've actually started to leave somewhat of an impression on the organization and feel like I've really got a good handle on how we operate and what we need to do to progress as an organization.

Matt: 13:26

Yeah, so what were some of the biggest surprises when you came in that you're like, oh, I didn't know they did this, or what were some of the reach of it that you weren't aware of?

Gary: 13:33

Well, yeah, so I hadn't worked previously in a nonprofit organization, so that was first and foremost was figuring out well, how do the finances work? And coming from traditionally working with organizations that were privately owned and lucratively very successful to suddenly coming into a nonprofit organization where it's like, okay, you've got to figure out how you're going to raise the funds and make sure that we have the revenues needed to sustain what we do and indeed to achieve some of the things that we want to moving forward as the organization grows and develops. Thankfully, our organization is, and has been in very good financial health since I've been here. I know that has not always historically been the case for our club or for many clubs in the area. I've heard of stories back in like the 70s and 80s where, you know, our board of directors were passing around a hat to make sure we had enough money to pay the electricity bills. So, you know, in the post-COVID world, thankfully, there had been a lot of funding during that period of time that helped to bridge the gap where we didn't have kids in the club and weren't able to run the programs like our aquatics programming and our camp programming that actually generates revenue for the organization. So we did have some support during those years. 

Gary: 14:43

And I have to say I feel very fortunate in that as a community, Watertown is spectacularly supportive of what we do. There's not a week goes by that I don't meet somebody who either was a club kid as a youth or their parents potentially were club kids, or their next door neighbor used to go to the club. They came here and played basketball or they took a swim lesson or they were part of camp. So it feels like the organization is very, very much ingrained in the Watertown community. Again, every week that goes by that just gets validated for me by some of the people that I meet and the stories that I hear about their experiences with the club. So we are very well supported, very well thought of, held in very high regard and I'm very proud of that. And, you know, I feel like there's obviously a level of responsibility on my shoulders to ensure that that feeling that people have about the organization continues during my tenure as the executive director. So I don't take that responsibility lightly. But I also feel very fortunate in that we're not a corporate entity. We're working with kids and that can be messy but it can be fun and, you know, we don't have to run around in shirts and ties.

Gary: 15:46

I get to wear shorts and a polo at this time of year. So there's certain things about it that are obviously very appealing. But more than anything else, I just love the mission of what we do and I love the commitment that our organization has to meeting our kids, meeting our families where they're at and ensuring that they have what they need. And many of our families do have pretty significant needs for support so I'm very, very proud that we're able to help make those kids' lives just a little bit better than what it would be if we weren't around.

Matt: 16:13

Yeah, so maybe this a good point then, for anyone who is not familiar with the club, what is it, what's its mission, what's it do, all that stuff?

Gary: 16:20

Yeah, so effectively our mission is to ensure that the kids that we serve every day we're giving them the opportunities and access to opportunities and support that they need to go on and become the very best version of themselves, the very best citizen that they can be in the community. I guess, as I think about what we do during the course of the year, the biggest and most impactful program that we run is our drop-in after-school program. 180 days of the school year when the kids get out of school they come to the club. Our after school program typically runs on a normal school day from 2.30 to 6 o'clock for our youngest members up through age 10, and then our middle school kids and our high school kids can stay until either 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening depending on what we have for programming and what the actual demand is for the kids to be in the building on any given night. But certainly from 2.30 to 6 o'clock we are pretty much a full house here, every day of the school year. We provide that service to our families at no cost, outside of a once-per-year membership fee of $25. So our families pay $25 per kid and the kids can come to that after-school program every day of the year at no additional cost.

Gary: 17:35

That after-school program probably consumes 70% of our annual energy and 70% of our annual budget and it doesn't generate any revenue. So we are reliant on a couple of other programs to help provide actual revenue and income to support that after-school program. And the two main ways that we generate that revenue is through a very comprehensive aquatics program in our swimming pool, which is really the jewel in our crown as a building and as an organization, and through our summer camp programs and school vacation programs. So when the kids are out of school we still offer programming at the club. But those are fee-based programs so they do generate revenue and, as I said, that revenue really helps to support our year-round operations. Covers our building overheads, helps cover payroll, and allows us to make some investment in the ongoing programming that we offer from year to year. That aquatics program, after our summer camp, the aquatics programming is our single biggest revenue stream. So year-round we offer swim lessons to kids anywhere from ages three and up, and again those happen during after school hours so they kind of run in parallel with our drop-in program. We have a very successful swim team in the organization, which again generates some revenue, but not a whole lot. We keep the cost for that program very, very low to ensure that every kid that wants to participate can do so without finances being a burden or a barrier to entry. And that swim team program, called the Wavemakers, really competes in a competitive calendar from September through March, April. They typically culminate the season with a visit to the national finals which always takes place in Saint Petersburg, Florida. It's kind of like a boys and girls club nationwide event. So teams from all around the country come and participate there for a long weekend. But even at this time of year we are currently offering a summer swim team program which is really more of a workout, keep the kids in shape, keep them active in the pool while they're outside of the regular season

Gary: 19:17

And outside of those revenue streams, we have, you know, fundraising events. So we have an annual golf tournament which happens every August at Oakley country club, who have been a fantastic partner for us. So they make the club available one Monday in August for us every year. We have a partnership with the Mugar family and the Mugar Foundation. Stephen P Mugar was one of the original founders of our club, passed away some years ago, but the tournament is named in his memory. So every year at that we have a fundraiser and the Mugar family have been wonderful partners. We set ourselves an annual target of raising $80,000 through participation and sponsorship in that event and if we can hit that number the Mugar family have traditionally matched that. So it becomes a $160,000 raise for us, which is a significant proportion of our annual revenues. And then we do some other smaller fundraising during the course of the year. We always have donations available and gladly will accept donations at any point in time.

Gary: 20:15

We're soon going to be sending out a summer appeal letter to all of our database, so our summer appeal program really helps to support our financial assistance program. As I mentioned earlier, our summer camp is a fee-based program and families do have to pay to participate in that. However, we have a really comprehensive financial assistance program and this year we're projected to give away somewhere in the region of $35,000 to $40,000 of, effectively, scholarships to kids to come to the camp program. Now that's obviously revenue that unfortunately we're simply not collecting that from the families. So the summer appeal will help to offset that financial assistance and ensure that again the club is still being able to generate some revenue from that program to support our general operations. So there are again multiple appeals throughout the course of the year to help generate funds for us.

Gary: 21:02

And then our newest program, which is going to be again another fee-based program, is our new licensed after-school program, which is slated to start in September of 2025. So that's going to be a fee-based after-school program for kids in grades kindergarten through third grade. Unlike our drop-in program, it is going to be licensed through the state of Massachusetts through the Department of Early Education and Care. So it's a brand new undertaking for us. We're psyched about that getting going. We currently have lined up 36 kids that are going to be participating in that program in year one and we hope that going into year two and three that might grow to be closer to 60 to 70 kids participating.

Matt: 21:38

Yeah, you took me on a little walk through there before and it's a really nice space, yeah.

Gary: 21:42

Yeah, thank you. No, we're really pleased with how it's come out. It's been about six months under construction and we're so close now to just getting final inspections and hopefully we'll get the sign off to start using that in the next couple of weeks.

Matt: 21:52

Yeah, so you mentioned the numbers for the daycare starting off, but then how many kids do you get going through the main building?

Gary: 21:59

Yeah, great question. So in any given year we have typically had somewhere between 900 and a thousand members. So those are people that sign up for a membership. Now those, we don't get 1,000 kids coming through the door every day. But for the afterschool drop-in program it varies by season and it varies by what the weather's doing. So, you know, our peak months are undoubtedly the winter months where it's cold and dark outside and there's really not a lot of afterschool activity going on outdoors. So December, January, February we could see anywhere from 130 to 150 kids a day coming in for the drop-in program.

Gary: 22:32

As fall sports and spring sports are going, those numbers drop a little bit. That number drops closer to 100. And then, as we really tail off towards the end of the school year and get into like early June, we might see 80 to 90 kids in the club a day. But on average we have between 100 and 105 kids a day that come into the after school program.

Gary: 22:49

During our summer camp season, which is now up and running, we typically will see somewhere between 70 and 90 kids participate in our summer camp on any given week. And that's a full day program that runs from 8 am to 4 pm and we offer an extended day program till 5 30 for those working families that can't get here for 4 pm. So it's really all of our programming is kind of based around ensuring that the families of our kids can have somewhere safe and reliable for their kids to go and have fun and learn and develop and socialize. That will primarily, ultimately allow those parents to ensure that they can still go to work, complete their working day and come back and get their kids after the program or after the workday is wrapped up.

Matt: 23:27

And when the kids are here, what are they doing?

Gary: 23:28

Good question. So it's a little bit of everything. In addition to our swimming pool, we have a gymnasium indoor which is thankfully, as of 2024, has got air conditioning in it, so it's become a place where they used to avoid it during the summer because it was so hot. It's now the place during summer camp where the kids gravitate towards to stay nice and cool. But we always have athletic programming going on anything from soccer to basketball to volleyball, kickball, dodgeball. We have a group of kids in right now during summer camp who are doing a yoga lesson through Artemis Yoga. So we have a partnership with them, so they've been thankfully providing some yoga programming for our kids. We have enrichment programming, so there's lots of arts and crafts. We partner with some third party vendors. Nature Connection is an organization that comes in and they give our kids exposure to both animal life and plant life. They'll come in and they might bring a tortoise one week, a rabbit, the next a dog, then the next that might be, you know, local flowers that they will bring in. They'll do discussions on that.

Gary: 24:23

We have a traditional old school Boys and Girls Club game room where we have pool and bumper pool and ping pong and arcade basketball. So there's those old school activities that are always available. And then we do a lot of educational programming, right. So we're an after school program primarily, and we're very deliberate in making sure that the after school existence feels different from school. We don't want our kids to come here and think, well, this is just an extension of the school day and I'm spending another, you know, two and a half three hours in the classroom. But we do homework help support during the after school program. So that's a part of, you know, daily activity. There's always an hour set aside where our staff and our volunteers from local colleges that are in with us day to day help our kids work through their homework for the afternoon. We have social and emotional learning programming. We do some programming online.

Gary: 25:10

So the Boys and Girls Clubs of America have a portfolio of programs that we can tap into and utilize. But we also do a lot of our own stuff. We partner with the local library for book club. You know, our kids will often take a walk down to the river and we'll give them some exposure to, you know, local plant life and animal life. We try to get them outdoors when we possibly can, when the weather cooperates. But we just want to give them a varied range of opportunities to get exposure to different things. So we're constantly thinking about, okay, what are they not potentially seeing either at school or at home that we can give them exposure to? And some of that might be skill building.

Gary: 25:44

We've created a new teen summer program this year where we've got a small group of kids that are going to partner with clubs in Waltham and Newton and they're going to go and take trips down to various locations downtown. They're going to get exposure to different non-profit spaces, different industries, educational organizations. So those teens are going to go and they're going to venture out of Watertown which we're thrilled about and go see a little bit of the local area and meet peers from other clubs, which we're really excited about. It's the first time we've ever done this. We've done this through a partnership with the WPS Institute in Newton. So we're really pleased and keen to see how that goes. That starts next week and we'll operate for three weeks. So, as I mentioned, it's about kind of just giving our kids exposure to things that they may not see on a day-to-day basis.

Matt: 26:24

Yeah. So then is there a particular success story, or just story, that you feel kind of exemplifies why you love this place?

Gary: 26:32

Yeah. Well, I mean, the simplest one to go to is our summer camp and our financial assistance program. We have a situation here where we have a family whose, one of their parents has effectively self-deported from Watertown because of a lot of the unfortunately, the political, you know, issues that our state and that the country is going through. So she was essentially went to a point where she had applied for financial assistance, received a large subsidy from us, so her fee was going to be basically, you know, 20% of what would be a normal fee. Unfortunately, after her husband has left the country, she would no longer had the income that he was bringing to the household. So she contacted us to say well, look, unfortunately, I'm not even going to be able to cover what I had signed up to, so I'm going to have to withdraw from summer camp. So because of the generosity of some donors, we were able to say no, you're not going to do that. We are going to be able to cover your entire summer camp season through our financial assistance program and through some additional funding that we've got from a donor. So, you know, got a really nice letter back from that mother talking about how impactful this is going to be and the opportunities it will give, not just for her kid but for her to be able to continue to work during the summer. So stories like that are extremely gratifying.

Gary: 27:41

But I hear this quite often, not just from kids that are currently in the program, but kids who have since grown up and hopefully gone through their high school career and a lot of them have gone to college. But they come back and they talk about the impact of the club just made for them growing up. And it sounds a bit cliche to say it, but it really has made an impactful change in their life because they had an opportunity to go somewhere where they were welcomed, they felt loved, they felt cared for. And they were able to do that without their family having to put themselves into a financially difficult situation or be unable to enroll because of the costs associated with it. So that's really where I feel most proud is our ability to ensure that these kids have got an equal opportunity to a lot of the programming that they might otherwise only be able to get through, you know, large fee-based programs that just aren't viable for them.

Matt: 28:28

Right, yeah. And then so what are some of the biggest challenges you're facing right now?

Gary: 28:33

Well, I mean, money is always a concern. Again, while we're in perfectly good health right now, all it takes would be another pandemic situation to suddenly happen where we lost access to the limited revenue streams that we have. You know, economic conditions of suddenly donors that we have typically been able to rely upon to make an annual contribution, are having to be forced into making a decision that they can no longer do that or they have to skip doing that for a year. So that is always a concern for me is making sure that we continue to have the finances required to operate. And thankfully, touch wood, this will not be a concern for us in the years ahead, but you know we always have to be prepared for that. 

Gary: 29:10

And then for me, it's ultimately the real quality of our organization, while I love our building and obviously our kids are at the forefront of everything we do, it's really about the quality of the people that run our program. And we are incredibly fortunate, we have a fantastic team of staff here. It's a small team of staff. There are eight of us now that work full time at the organization. Five of those eight are full time within our programming. So, you know, Anthony is our program director, Brittany is our health and wellness director, Alec oversees our aquatics programming, Rose is our social recreation director, and Potomac is our teen director. So every day of the week I watch these guys make miracles happen. They're fantastic, you know. Whatever success we have and the reputation that we have is because of the work that they're doing with the kids on a day-to-day basis.

Gary: 29:55

And one of the challenges I have is like how do we keep that talent, how do we have those folks continue to be invested in what they're doing here at the club? Ultimately, as a nonprofit, we can't always compete with the salaries that they might have available to them within the private sector. So we gladly have them here because they love what they do. But ultimately them loving what they do doesn't cover their rent or allow them to start a family or even be a homeowner at some point in time.

Gary: 30:21

So one of my motivations is to say how do we get the club's finances to a point where we can continue to give those people a path of progression financially in their income? We've been very proud in that for the last couple of years we've been able to give them an annual increase, which was not always the case at our club. And it's certainly not always the case at a lot of the clubs out there, but we have made an investment that says the retention and the reward of our staff is one of our top priorities. But with that comes the need to make sure that you have the funds to be able to cover that. So that's one of the challenges that I'm always looking at and it's one of the reasons why I'm so thankful for the support that we get from the community. Because their donations the vast majority of that money is being pumped into programming for the kids, but it also helps us to be able to sustain the development of our staff, both professionally and economically.

Matt: 31:10

So maybe a couple of things to try and maybe hit on would be, well, one, did you want to talk more about the daycare center at all?

Gary: 31:18

Yeah, again, we're really pleased with where we're at. We have limited our capacity for year one while we're launching the program, so we didn't want to stretch ourselves too much and when we're hiring new staff to help cover that, those will be part-time staff that will work under our new director, Sarah Austin, who joined us a few weeks ago, so we're psyched to have her on board. We know it's going to be a great program. We currently now have a wait list in effect for 2025-26 school year, which is upcoming in September. But that program is ultimately going to grow over the next couple of years. And, you know, as the population of Watertown continues to grow, we know that the after school programs in our elementary schools, who do a fantastic job with the Watertown Community Education Program, they're also stretched to capacity as well. So as our population grows, our families in Watertown need more options for after-school care.

Gary: 32:09

I'm thrilled that we've been able to help support that in some way through the creation of this Kid Connect program and we're really excited to see how that grows in the next couple of years. So, as I said, it's a new undertaking. We're psyched to get going with it. It's going to be a bit of a voyage of discovery for us in that it is something new, but I feel that we're in a really good place as far as preparation for it is concerned and I know it's going to be a phenomenal program for the kids that are involved.

Gary: 32:27

So I look forward to sharing the successes of that program with the public as we get into the new school year in September and interested to see how that space is going to develop. It is specifically an after school program, so the beautiful space that we have will also be utilized for club programming after six o'clock. So the Kid Connect license program will operate from 2.30 to 6 every day and then we plan to use the space in the evening for either our own programming activities or potentially prior to the Kid Connect program and afterwards for community space. So it's space that we can envision renting out to either private organizations or local community groups if they need additional space to be able to host meetings, host small events. It's going to be perfectly set up for that. So we feel like it's going to give us an opportunity to create a revenue stream outside of just the Kid Connect program through rentals and through other third party organizations that might want to use it.

Matt: 33:20

Yeah, cool. How do kids get from school to the after school program?

Gary: 33:24

Great question, great question. So we are incredibly fortunate in that the public school system buses the kids directly from the elementary schools to the club every day. So they specifically have some bus routes that will come past the club. Our families have to sign up for a place on that bus directly with the school system. So it's not something that we control or manage. But, again, a phenomenal investment by the community in making that happen.

Gary: 33:47

I can't stress how important that service is, because without the ability of getting the kids from the schools to the club, then our program would not be nearly as effective as it is. So again, that happens for elementary schools. Geographically we're very close to the middle school, so our middle school kids can walk directly to the club. And with the placement of the high school currently in the modular building, it's very handy for high school kids to be able to walk here in a matter of minutes. No transportation is provided by us or the school system for middle school and high school, but all three elementary schools have the opportunity to get transported to the club by buses. So we're really appreciative of the school system for doing that.

Matt: 34:23

Yeah, yeah, I was recently listening back to the conversation I had with Ernie Thebado, who is director of rec, who used to be here as well, but he talked about how great the public schools is, with working with rec and boys and girls. So it seems like there is a great synergy there between all those.

Gary: 34:35

Yeah, and it's been something I've really tried to build upon since I've gotten here. You know, I don't know historically if the club has always worked particularly closely with the high school, but with the development of the new high school we have actually been able to partner with the school system to provide gym space and our game room space for a phys ed programming and some of their school leadership programming that they have within the school. So that's been ongoing for the last two and a half years. We look forward to welcoming those high school students back in the fall. The new high school I know is slated to open in April so we anticipate that they'll continue to need to utilize some club space until then. But that's been a phenomenal partnership and we've been thrilled to have them and thrilled to be able to help out. So we ultimately serve the same group of kids.

Gary: 35:16

So it's like how do we work together to ensure that we are giving those kids the very best experience as young people in Watertown, Whether in schools during the day, to the boys and girls clubs after school, and then the rec department programming and the local, you know, youth soccer, youth basketball, youth baseball, all the other community groups that we have. We really feel like we are very central to the community and it's been nothing but a pleasure getting to know and build relationships with the folks that are running all these other phenomenal programs in town. As a Watertown resident myself and I have been for since two weeks before my daughter, Maeve, was born, so she's coming in 12 in October, I've been thrilled as a resident with how our life has been here in Watertown as a family. It's been a wonderful place to live and bring our kids up, and I feel like, as the director of the Boys and Girls Club right here in town, I feel like my connection to the community has just grown exponentially over the last few years and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'm very fortunate.

Matt: 36:11

So the last thing maybe I'll throw out before we wrap up then would be is there anything that you want to make sure that the community knows about Boys and Girls Club that they might not be aware of, or any particular message you want to get out to them?

Gary: 36:23

Yeah, well, you know, I actually believe it or not, I still think that there are some families that aren't fully aware of how your after-school program operates and when we explain to them, you know, the structure and the one-time annual fee of $25 for the full year of after-school, they kind of have that strange look on their face. It's like that doesn't sound right. Are you sure? 

Matt: 36:40

What’s the catch? 

Gary: 36:41

Yeah, and there is no catch. But yeah, I think just letting people know about that program or aquatics program. And I think a lot of people who are interested in swimming will ultimately find our program. But, you know, there's just there's so much that the club does and there's other things that we want to do moving forward. One of the objectives of the club is obviously to ensure that our members are participating as much as possible. But my personal belief in that is that I don't want to force things into our program if they're not truly needed by our kids or if they're not desired by our kids. So we're very keen to try and learn from our children directly and from our families, like where is your need at? What are the things that you would like to have your kids do, that they don't currently have the ability to do? And then we as an organization are looking at that and saying, okay, can we facilitate that? Can we find space to run the program? Can we deliver that program ourselves, or do we need to find somebody with more expertise to come in and do that? And then, if all of those things can be figured out, how do we fund it? You know, is this going to add X amount of dollars to our annual budget expenses? If so, then how do we cover that? Can we find a local organization to sponsor that? Can we run an event to help offset the costs? So it's just a constant series of figuring out those problems.

Gary: 37:51

Problem-solving is kind of what we do. But we're keen to try and engage more with our families and with the community to figure out, like, where the need is, where is it not being met and how do we help with that. I know that there are other organizations that are doing that. We get tremendous support from the Community Foundation. We get tremendous support from local organizations, primarily amongst them Watertown Savings Bank and Donahue's Restaurant. That has been a great partner for us over the years. We're trying to expand that network of organizations and businesses. And there's obviously a ton of new businesses that have come into town. So I'm keen to get out and meet with those folks and introduce them to what we do and see if they can potentially help us out in the future. So I guess the one thing I would say is like, if there are people out there that feel that they have expertise that they can lend to the club as a volunteer, or if they can make a connection with, you know, an organization that they feel could be supportive, I would love to explore that with them.

Matt: 38:41

Cool. Well, if anyone wants to reach out to you with any of those questions or comments, where should they reach out?

Gary: 38:48

Yeah, great. So our website tends to have all of our information. We do manage that in-house, but we've become a bit more proficient on that. So www.watertownbgc.org is our website and they should feel free to call the club at any point in time at 617-926-0968 is our number. And I'm never far away.

Matt: 39:09

Awesome any other last thoughts before we sign off?

Gary: 39:11

No, just thank you for this opportunity. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I'm sorry for talking too much. But I look forward to digging into more about what you do and, I have to say, just seeing some of the people that you've spoken with here in the community, it's nice to see so many people that are so active in our community and get to know them a little bit more through what you do. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Matt: 39:32

Yeah, thanks for taking your time to share your thoughts and stories.

Gary: 39:34

No worries, it's been great to meet you, Matt.

Matt: 39:36

So that's it for my conversation with Gary. You can find out more information about the Boys and Girls Club where he mentioned. I’ll also put that information in the show notes. If you like the podcast and you'd like to find more episodes, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. You can find all the episodes and information for live podcast events coming up. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter I send out. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, there is a support local conversation button in the menu. Again, that's all over at littlelocalconversations.com.

Matt: 40:04

I'd like to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. First one goes to podcast sponsor Arsenal Financial. They are a financial planning business here in Watertown that is owned by Doug Orifice, who is a very committed community member. He's involved in the Watertown Business Coalition to the Watertown Cultural District, among other things in town. But his business, Arsenal Financial, helps small businesses, busy families, and people close to retirement. So if you're any of those and you need some help, reach out to Doug and his team at arsenalfinancial.com. I also want to give a shout out to the Watertown Cultural Council who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at watertownculturalcouncil.org and massculturalcouncil.org.

Matt: 40:53

And a couple more shout outs to promotional partners. First one goes to the Watertown Business Coalition, which is a nonprofit organization here in Watertown that is bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them and the events they have coming up at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.