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Yelm’s Boys & Girls Club branch found its home in the former Yelm City Hall building in 2019. Five years after the organization settled into its permanent location, Thurston County Boys & Girls Club CEO Shellica Trevino updated the Yelm City Council about the overall impact the club has had in the city.
Since finding its home in 2019, Trevino said Yelm’s Boys & Girls Club has grown to serve 387 members over the last five years. The Yelm City Council approved the transition into the old City Hall building at a meeting in 2019.
“Our mission is to inspire and enable our youth to realize their greatness,” Trevino said. “When you all said yes in 2019, you all joined us in that mission to make sure kids have a place, both before and after school, that was affordable to their parents and gave them an opportunity to be safe.”
Yelm’s Boys & Girls Club supports youth of all different backgrounds, Trevino said. She noted that nearly half of the population in the organization qualified for fee-waiver scholarships, meaning their family is in the low-to-moderate income demographic. As well, 51% of participants qualify for free-and-reduced lunch, 31% of the population comes from single parent households, and 43% of members are people of color.
“There was really not a lot for them to access after school in Yelm, and that was part of the council’s response, was ‘We need to provide more opportunities to families who really need it,’ ” Trevino said. “If they’re McKinney-Vento enrolled in the school district, they pay zero – making sure the kids that are the most vulnerable have access and that cost is not a barrier, which is really important.
“We do serve a decent number of kids who are classified as McKinney-Vento, or unhoused,” Trevino added. “They are receiving full scholarships. It is important to note that, for a couple hours every afternoon, those kids just get to be kids. That’s really what the club is intending on providing.”
She added that families who don’t qualify as low-to-moderate income households pay a $50 yearly membership and $150 monthly for before and/or after school programming at the club. Low-to-moderate income families could potentially get their $50 yearly membership waived and will pay $30 monthly for club programming.
The club also offers several programs for members, including the Youth of the Year honor, which named the first youth of the year in Yelm this year. All eight branches under the Thurston County Boys & Girls Club umbrella offer the Kayla’s Kids program, which provides local mental health support.
“We have a clinical director and a behavioral support specialist who visit each of our branch locations, one per week, and each of those spends an entire day supporting the kids in that local branch,” Trevino said.
The organization also offers the Power Hour program, which intends to drive academic success within the club itself.
“The kids earn points or prizes for participating in that program,” Trevino said. “The intent is really to give them an opportunity to build academic skills in the club environment. We incentivize that — we’re not opposed to bribing them with pizza parties and club store opportunities for them to start practicing and developing those skills.”
Recently, Yelm’s Boys & Girls Club received a grant valued at $100,000, which allowed the organization to complete numerous improvements around the branch, including replacing carpets and adding flooring in the art room.
“We took down multiple walls. As you know there were a lot of offices … We were able to demo multiple walls, providing better sight lines and expanded space,” Trevino said. “That grant made a huge difference in making sure we can have the safest and most comfortable program possible.”
Trevino praised the Yelm City Council and community members who have helped the club run successfully in the last five years.
“Yelm is very special. You all rallied for us when we first opened the branch in 2019,” Trevino said. “We never experienced anything like that in any other community. We’re very grateful for the partnerships that we have across the county, but it felt different here. I know you all know that because you live here and experience it, regularly.”
Mayor Joe DePinto followed up Trevino’s comments thanking her and Yelm’s Boys & Girls Club.
“Thank you for your leadership, Shellica, and thank you for your partnerships for the Boys & Girls Club in Yelm,” DePinto said.
