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Community Impact

At the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Pittsfield, our community impact - in terms of actual numbers - is easy to quantify:

  • Approximately 5,000 boys and girls are members of the club this year.
  • Each day, approximately 1,200 to 1,400 members come into the club to participate in programs, play sports or simply hang out.
  • When you include parents and siblings who watch practices and games, or pick up their children, 3,000 to 4,000 individuals pass through our doors every day.
  • Each year, 30,000 to 40,000 individuals come to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club to watch high school games, enjoy public skating, or attend special events.
  • At Camp Russell, the Boys’ and Girls’ Club’s summer home on Richmond Pond, 350 youth attend camp during the season, with 1,600 to 1,800 different children making up our summer enrollment.

The Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Pittsfield is also home to a number of outside groups:

  • St. Joseph Central High School Basketball Team
  • St. Joseph Central High School Hockey Team
  • Wahconah Central High School Hockey Team
  • Pittsfield High School/Taconic High School Hockey Team
  • St. Joseph Central High School Swim Team
  • Pittsfield High School Swim Team
  • The Pittsfield Figure Skating Club
  • The Pittsfield Speed Skating Club

We also host major annual community events, including:

  • The Harlem Globetrotters
  • The Air Force Band

What is less easy to quantify is the genuine impact that the club has on children and their families. Our members often find just the right words to express what the club has meant to them. The following is written by Olivia Handerek, our 2009 Youth of the Year:

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.” I feel that I’m definitely understood at the club. Over the past three years, the club has come to mean more to me than I ever imagined. I feel happy walking through those familiar doors each day because I am so thankful for what the club has given me, and I am eager to give back in my own way. The club is so much more than a “hang out” or a job, or a place that I volunteer. It is part of who I am. The confident, happy, hard-working young woman that I am today is a direct result of the club, and I can not say thank you enough to the people and experiences that have forever altered me.”