Salvation Army drops club affiliation
Changes in view at campus, board member steps down
The Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club will drop its affiliation with the national organization at the end of this year and become a multigenerational Red Shield community center, two years after a $1.6 million expansion and upgrade supported by local donors.
Capt. Jeff Breazeale, Yuma corps officer for the Salvation Army, said the decision has been made in response to changing needs within the community, but the after-school programming now being offered through the club will not change.
“The only thing that’s changing is the name. The program that has been running for the last 16 years is going to continue,” Breazeale said.
What is offered now to the 112 kids currently enrolled at the Boys and Girls Club includes homework help, a computer lab, a STEM program, arts and crafts, a sensory garden, ballet, sports and other physical recreation, he said.
What will be different is how the campus at 1100 S. 13th Ave. is used when the afterschool and summer programs are not in session.
“We’ll be able to offer the facility to other programs-pickup basketball games in the evening for adults, being able to open up in the morning for working with single moms with young children and families, that don’t fit in that youth program age of first to eighth grade,” he said.
The Red Shield center will also offer teen-oriented programs, he said, after they were dropped from the Boys and Girls Club a few years ago for space and staffing reasons.
The Salvation Army will be looking to expand its staffing for the after-school and summer programs to maintain its required ratio of one adult for every eight children, lower than that required by the Boys and Girls Club of America, he said.
The “Red Shield” sign will go up on the site Jan. 1. Salvation Army staff spoke to several donors and users before the announcement was made this week, Breazeale said, “and the reaction overall was positive, with support for the Salvation Army.
“We do understand that a few people have sentimental feelings for the Boys and Girls Club name because it’s been part of our community for so many years. We also hope that those who feel that way understand this decision was made to enhance the program for the entire family,” he added.
Vic Smith of Yuma, whose Smith Family Foundation was the largest donor to the capital drive which funded the expansion, said he didn’t get any kind of notice about the Salvation Army leaving the Boys and Girls Club organization.
“They claim they had notified me, but if they did I sure didn’t remember it,” said Smith, who cut the ribbon when the new 3,000 square-foot building was dedicated in October 2017.
That aside, he said he didn’t know enough about the organizational change to comment on it.
“I sure hope they continue to do the good work that the Boys and Girls Club was doing, and that’s the reason I’m sure a lot of us donated to it, because that was a known entity, a known quantity of service they were giving,” he said.
When he was approached about supporting the project, he said he was told the existing building was too small and dated to accommodate the needs of the children being served.
Besides adding a theater, conference room and classrooms in the new building, the existing one was renovated with plumbing repairs, new ceilings and upgraded flooring, as well as an updated kids cafe. At the time, the club said the expansion would allow the club’s enrollment to double, to about 300 children served.
“I toured it, went through it a few times, you go ‘wow, nice to see the money went to a good purpose,” he said.
Tom Kelly, a Yuma attorney and former member of the Salvation Army of Yuma’s advisory board, chaired the capital campaign committee for the expansion and approached Smith as part of his fundraising efforts.
He said he stepped down from the board once it became clear the Boys and Girls Club affiliation would be dropped, because he didn’t want any part of the decision, which he said came from higher up in the organization.
“The Salvation Army does this and the local board had no say in this, we had nothing that we could do about it, we were told what they were going to do,” he said. “We would take the brunt of the abuse if we stayed on the board, because the Salvation Army that’s doing this is up in Phoenix.”
Kelly said a large majority of the board quit, but Braezeale said eight of the board’s 25 members have recently stepped down, and he will be recruiting new ones next year.
Kelly said, “I just can’t tell you how upset I am at this whole thing. They’re talking about making it into a community center with adults and children. I don’t think that works, I don’t think you should have adults around children.
“And a number of donors gave money specifically for rooms for the children to do things in,” he said, like the arts and crafts room he sponsored for $25,000.
He said he and other board members had been concerned about other recent changes, notably the decision to close the
two Yuma-area thrift stores. “We weren’t happy about a few things, but this was just a complete 180-degree change. We were shocked. I mean shocked.”
Braezeale said the stores were closed because they were losing money, while the shift to a Red Shield center, modeled on others the Salvation Army operates in the Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago areas, is intended to meet the needs of a wider spectrum of the community.
He said programs targeting adults in the Red Shield center will not occur at the same time as the youth after-school and summer programs.
“One of the biggest things the Salvation Army has is child and vulnerable adult safety. We’re not just going to to let anybody in off the street or to walk in, to come play basketball when we still have a whole bunch of kids,” he said.
The Boys and Girls Club, like its counterparts in other cities, was known for providing a more affordable alternative to daycare
centers for children to go after school, away from the dangers that could be posed by their streets or neighborhoods.
It began as a Boys Club in 1964, and became a Boys and Girls Club in the 1980s, said Kari Tatar, the Salvation Army of Yuma’s former business development director.
She researched the club’s local history while creating the marketing materials for the Boys and Girls Club expansion’s capital campaign. “It was really, really devastating to hear what they were doing to the community,” she said.
She added, “There is a lot of heart and soul from a lot of good people in this community that went into that campaign. And we put in a lot of time, seven days a week, making connections with people about the program, talking about all of our successes in what we were doing there.
“For what? Not even two years later, now, it’s ‘OK, thanks for your work, bye. We’ve got the rest of our money, we’re going to do what we want with this building.”’
Braezeale said he’s aware of that sentiment
within the community, and said it came up during a meeting with Mayor Doug Nicholls following the announcement.
“The underlying factor, and I spoke with the mayor about this, there are those who feel we are ‘stealing’ from the community,” he said. Really, it’s a personal feeling. We feel we have upheld our commitment to the community of being a Boys and Girls Club for the last 16 years. And with that the only change is the name.”
The Salvation Army was approached by the City of Yuma about taking over management of the Boys and Girls Club, as a means of regaining confidence in the agency after an executive director was fired and pleaded guilty to embezzlement in 2000.
The two agencies merged in 2002. Breazeale said the building was owned by a remainder trust that was administered by the city at that time, and it was purchased by the Salvation Army. In 2007 the agency petitioned the state to remove all restrictions placed by the previous estate on the property, and took full control over it.
“The Salvation Army was approached by the city because we’re an honest program. We do what we say we’re going to do, no matter what. And we have for the last 16 years we have operated as a Boys and Girls Club.
“And we feel the community needs an expansion of the program to include the whole family and not just a youth program. And the Boys and Girls Club does not allow us to run a program under that moniker,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Boys and Girls Club of America did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.
Kelly said he believes this change will cost the Salvation Army a lot of goodwill from the relatively small number of Yuma sources who are able to donate large sums of money. “I think they’re going to have great difficulty in getting support from many of the individuals who supported them in the past,” he said.