Vision, guidance and execution earn BGCMC board of directors esteemed award from state council, national chapter

Nothing, as the saying goes, is written in stone. We strive to instill this simple truth—so often obscured by difficult circumstances—into the hearts and minds of the children we serve at Boys & Girls Clubs of Martin County (BGCMC).

When equipped with education, opportunity, expectations and guidance, our members can rise above the limitations life seemingly handed so many of them.

Of course, good guidance is key and it stems from good leadership. Thankfully, we’re blessed with both at the BGCMC board, which is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Florida Area Council recently awarded our corporate board the vaulted recognition of Board of the Year for the State of Florida. That’s no small achievement. In Florida alone the Boys & Girls Clubs Alliance encompasses clubs operating on 243 sites in 46 counties and serving nearly 215,000 children. With this award, our board advances to regional and possible national opportunities for additional recognition.

Our Executive Board, Board of Directors and President’s Circle consists of many incredible individuals. Each one boasts resumes brimming with significant accomplishments locally and in many cases nationally. With individual achievements too numerous to list, their collective efforts share vital traits and characteristics, including:

• Resolved decision-making amid crisis and adversity: Such skills mattered most when we adopted policies and practices to reopen during covid and provide our members with safe, beneficial and free activities and academic instruction so parents could return to work.
• Studying important issues, challenging assumptions, and addressing difficulties: All proved vital in the board’s approach to pursuing the best ways to serve the East Stuart community, which our incoming flagship Stuart club will enable us to do.
• Trusting themselves, trusting each other and trusting their team: This allows everyone to arrive at the best directions possible and execute strategies while leaving room to self-correct as needed. Such a dynamic is seldom if ever easy, especially with so many highly qualified and accomplished leaders around the table. But the mission of serving local children in need—and expanding on those we reach—provides the unifying cause they never lose sight of.
• Inspiring themselves and others to greatness: This innate and self-motivated quality makes our board members superb ambassadors for BGCMC members, opening doors to incredible, lifechanging opportunities for our members. Best of all, they’re all too willing to roll up their sleeves and get directly involved in whatever needs to be done.

Even the board’s no doubt sage tendency of providing guard rails to ensure my accelerator approach to things remains on track, there’s a balanced blue-sky environment that encourages innovation, creativity and freedom to disrupt the status quo to meet our members need with expediency.

I can comfortably speak for the entire BGCMC team in stating that we’re honored to follow leadership that’s so sincerely committed to rejecting the narratives of low expectations often placed upon our members—and rewriting the possibilities before them. This is how one generation of leadership creates and shapes the next.

Keith Fletcher’s opinions are his own and may not reflect Friends & Neighbors viewpoint.



To read more visit: https://www.friendsandneighborsofmartincounty.com/issue/47/sep-17-2023/