"Find your golden nugget": How the Boys & Girls Club of Central Iowa is adapting to COVID

By Katy Lenard, senior associate at Burness Communications.

Since COVID-19 hit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa—which serves more than 2,300 participants annually, from kindergartners to seniors in high school, across seven sites in Des Moines—CEO Jodie Warth and her staff have been learning to adapt and change so that communities can get what they need, not just today, but once the pandemic fades.  

“You have to find a way to stay relevant,” Warth says. “Find your golden nugget. For us, it was our food service—we’ve been doing it really well all along and had control over it. We can do food. That’s our golden nugget.”

Almost all Club participants (97 percent) are on free and reduced-lunch plans and the majority of their families make less than $18,000 a year. Pre-pandemic, they’d receive breakfast and lunch in school. Once they got to Club each afternoon, they’d receive a snack and dinner. And every Friday, they’d get to take home food for their entire family for the weekend, no matter how many members that family had. And once a month, the staff would send them home with personal hygiene items.

According to Warth, “We do it so that a particular Club family doesn’t have to worry about choosing between eating and medicine. Or whether to buy deodorant or bread.” 

But, she says, “With COVID-19, all those things stopped immediately.”

It was a devastating blow, but the Club has managed to learn to adapt. They partnered with the Food Bank of Iowa to deliver meals to families in need across the city. By mid-April, they’d distributed more than 500 food bags. They even turned one of their Club sites into a food pantry, where local families can pick up their own groceries. And because they’ve managed to continue paying Club staff at least through the end of May, many are volunteering to staff the pantry. 

“We have to stay relevant for our children and our community so I can continue to raise money and make it through this process,” says Warth. “And that means getting creative.”

In addition to making sure kids and their families are fed, staff reach out every day with virtual learning experiences posted to social media and to their website that reflect the Club’s three key enrichment areas: academic success, healthy lifestyles, and good character and citizenship. 

The unit directors also call the participants and their families every single day. They keep calling until they reach someone to make sure they have what they need--whether it be food, cleaning supplies or books. And for the participants who may have had trouble at home before, they’ve begun to implement “safe words,” indicating to Club staff that something might be wrong--so they can take action if needed.

“My biggest fear—what keeps me up at night—is that without our seeing these kids every day, things like abuse, hunger, drug and domestic abuse might be happening at home,” Warth says. 

That’s why she hopes that the meaningful connections her staff make with families and the continued work the Club is doing help them stay relevant today and when they can one day open their doors again to all of Des Moines. The community is depending on it.