MASHPEE – Boys and Girls Club of Cape Cod has a new teen director, new pricing and more participants than ever this year, according to the club’s Executive Director Ruth Provost.
The club, an afternoon and summer drop-in program, has been in its location off Route 151 in Mashpee for 18 years. It opened the year prior in the Mashpee Industrial Park.
Provost, a former state representative, has been running the organization for 12 years.
The program is open from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. for children in grades one through grade 6; and open from 2 p.m. until 8 or 10 p.m. for teens in grades 9 through 12.
Seventh and eighth graders can attend the clubhouse from 2 to 6 p.m. or a program for teens at Mashpee High School from 2 to 6 p.m.
The new teen director at the club is Matt Ferrer, who had worked at the YMCA, and, Provost said, has already been to Mashpee High School, doing lunches and meeting kids. “Any teen is welcome to come to our club and meet him,” she said.
Ferrer is working with older teens to set up college visits and the club will supply transportation for college visits from New York to Maine.
“We’ll take them to anywhere we can drive them to,” Provost said.
The club serves any child who lives on Cape Cod age 6 and in first grade to age 18. The annual membership fee is $100 for the school year, up from $75 last year. The fee was raised in order to meet the budget, Provost said.
The club also charges for vacation days and half days, when the club is open 8:30 to 5 p.m. If a child attends all those sessions in a year, the total price would be $300, Provost said, which works out to $1.63 per day.
“It still keeps us very affordable,” she said.
Provost explained that the club offers a range of activities from homework help, to a gym and sports challenges, to art projects and a playground.
“Our mission is to serve the kids, not the parents per say, so we really make it so any kid can walk in the door at any time and feel that they can be part of the Boys and Girls Club,” she said.
Last year, the Boys and Girls Club served 900 kids ages 6 to 18. This year, the club is 120 kids ahead of where it was at this time last year, Provost said.
To hear more from Ruth Provost about the Boys and Girls Club on Cape Cod, listen below.
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