We’re in Good Company: Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal

We’re in Good Company. Town and Country Bank and Peoples Prosperity Bank are honored to serve communities where small business owners are innovative and resilient.

Since 1992, the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal has helped area children between the ages of five and 18. “We’re an after-school and summer program,” explains CEO Tony Morstatter. “Our mission is to empower all young people, especially those who need us the most, to reach their full potential as responsible, productive, caring citizens.”

The Club served 1,143 members last year, in which most were low-income. “About 87 percent of our families qualify for free or reduced lunch,” says Morstatter, the oldest of four kids who has worked with children all of his life. Club staff help children aim for academic success, good character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyles. That includes a variety of programming, including providing a daily healthy meal, tutoring, mentoring, career counseling, athletics, and fine arts.

Then the pandemic hit, and the Club had to shutter its on-site programs. While it’s considered an essential business because the program cares for children of essential workers and businesses, the Club shut down because “we wanted to make sure safety remains our number one priority and that we weren’t putting our kids, staff, or the community at risk in spreading the COVID virus,” Morstatter says.

“Not having children here, it’s really kind of taken the life and energy out of the Boys & Girls Club,” says Morstatter. So, the Club staff developed new ways to help its clients. “We launched a virtual club experience online and we’ve had over 440 youth engaged through that.”

It’s also partnering with other community groups to provide 750 meals to children and families daily, that’s more than three times the number of people the Club fed each day before the pandemic. The families get a grab and go dinner from one of four distribution sites throughout the community. “We work with local businesses and restaurants who are providing the meals at a discounted cost to the club,” Morstatter says. “As a result, we’re not only supporting our local businesses, but we’re also continuing to support the youth in our community. We are building new partnerships and strengthening existing partnerships.”

Every other week, the Club includes an activity kit for the kids. The McLean County Health Department and Agriculture Department, public libraries, and other various partners have helped by donating COVID safety literature and other activities for the kits.

The additional partnerships, virtual programming, and increased families receiving food are all positives from the pandemic lockdown, but one big negative has been a loss of funding. The Club can’t hold its regular fundraiser. “To put this in context, it costs us roughly $640 a school year and another $640 per summer to provide programming for one member,” Morstatter says. “We charge our families $25 a year to be part of the Club. Without being able to host our fundraisers and appeals, we’re looking at about a $200,000 impact this year.”

To help, Morstatter applied for a Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program loan through Town and Country Bank. “That has allowed us to continue to operate and keep our seven full-time employees and eight to nine part-time employees,” he says. “Dave Rutledge (EVP, Community Bank President for Town and Country Bank’s dedicated Loan Production Office) is one of our strategic partners. He helped us apply for the loan, and we look to continue to work together and support our community in whatever way we can.”

Despite the drawbacks, Morstatter says the pandemic has “reassured him that the community we’re a part of is amazing and supportive. It’s also reinforced the passion and commitment that I see in our staff every day for the Club, our kids, our families, and our community. There are a lot of kids who miss us, and we miss every one of them, too.” He hopes the Club will be able to reopen on June 1, but that plan is still tentative.

For more information or to apply for an SBA Paycheck Protection Program loan, please visit us here today!