Greg Gary has been the Executive Director of BGC (Boys and Girls Club) Toronto Kiwanis (BGCTK) for more than four years. BGCTK runs six program sites for children, youth and families in downtown communities in Toronto. It has been operating for more than 100 years, and its programs and activities centre on Literacy & Learning, Cooking & Nutrition, Physical Activity, Creative Arts, and Personal Development. Gary has a background in elite sports, including as a player in the Canadian Football League and as head coach for the University of Toronto Varsity Blues football team, where he was also part of a task force about race and indigeneity. He has 15 years of experience working with community organizations and a lifetime of experience working with youth. He spoke with PANL Perspectives about BGCTK’s work with newcomers and youth, especially related to employment.
Question: How did you transition from excelling in professional sports to leading nonprofit organizations?
Greg Gary: I grew up just outside of Los Angeles, California, and I used to go to a club there — not a Boys and Girls Club, but very similar. I ended in something like a coordinator role at the club, running a summer program. We hired a bunch of other youth — I wasn’t that much older than they were — and we ran the program at a park. That was the start of my community-service work, which is in my DNA.
After football, including years with the Hamilton Tigercats when we won the Grey Cup (in 1986), I went back to community service, working for the Addiction Research Foundation, which is now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in Toronto – and working for other community organizations.
Fast forward to now, being a part of the Boys and Girls Club is incredible — watching young people who have opportunities to work, who participate in our programs and who grow into active community members. There’s a magic in that – in all the programs. I can talk about strategies and projects, but what happens on the ground is another thing. When a young person’s eyes light up because of an activity or an opportunity, there’s something special there; opportunities change everything. I mean, that’s one of BGC’s big things: no barriers to creating opportunities.
For example, when a young person comes to the club, there’s always a meal available, like at the After-School Programs. Maybe that sounds too simple, but the meal option is a big deal for many youth, as are the physical activities and creative clubs here. It’s the same with employment opportunities and initiatives that we run.
Q: How many youth are from newcomer communities?
Greg Gary: We run programs in the Regent Park and St. James Town region, in Toronto. It’s one of the most densely populated communities in Canada and, many Southeast Asians and a high percentage of newcomers live there. For example, we run the Community Action Program for Children, for children up to aged six years, and that’s for new Canadians. Parents talk about work opportunities, children’s health, educational programs, that kind of thing. It’s really valuable for the community. There are 200 families on the list that CAP regularly serves.
You know, newcomers who come through the door for the first time, they usually want to enroll their children in an after-school program – they focus on their children — and then they learn there are other resources, like a course for parents, mostly the mothers attend, about employment opportunities and how to pursue those opportunities. There are a lot of connecting points and success stories with newcomers.
Q: What employment programs are available for youth and newcomers?
Greg Gary: It’s important to make sure that youth have employment opportunities – and we train and hire many, partly through the Canada Summer Jobs program, for youth who are mostly 15 to 18 years old here. Each year, we employ about 85 youth part-time. We’re not an employment agency, but part of what we do is employ young people and train them how to develop skills, so they can move into the workplace when opportunities arise. The training and development are intentional.
We run a leaders training program, and counsellors training program. These give young people opportunities to develop skills. We help with resume writing, time management, organizing their lives in the “real work world.”
A phenomenal amount of our work is done in an informal way – and it gets formalized through various programs. When they work here, we know it’s their first job – we’re forgiving of mistakes. They’re often learning for the first time. It’s like coaching a sport; people make mistakes, but they figure them out and try not into to make same mistakes. Many youth have their start here in terms of employment and being active community members.
And we see young people who have been employed here start their own entrepreneurial activities, like running a photography club. We found the resources for that club — and it’s a success. Such activities are a really big deal for youth; they’re a step for them, empowering them to control their own futures and their own finances.
Q: How can our sector improve the situation in terms of programming for newcomers and their kids?
Greg Gary: It’s so important to move away from the numbers once in a while. I know big impact numbers are impressive — let’s make sure you’re hitting 100 employed youth for example. But if you employ all those kids and mainly push them through programs, with no intentional skill development, other than they got paid for a job and aren’t sure they learned anything, then you’re creating a false sense of impact. However, if you have a program for 10 youth, and they finish with skill sets, and they’re talking to their peers and giving back to their communities, they’re becoming leaders in their communities, then the impacts are actually exponential in terms of impact.
We finished a recent proposal, which got funded, that shows how employment makes a difference in young people moving through a community. The proposal made it clear that this isn’t a numbers thing. It’s about impacting a small percentage of young people’s lives, so that they can go out and have an impact on others over time. This kind of impact isn’t a one-year plan; it’s more of a 10-year, 20-year impact. That’s the way I think about it. How can we be advocates? How do we talk to funders, so that they’re open to hearing these types of conversations?
Greg Gary is on LinkedIn. Photos are courtesy of BGCTK.
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Saturday, December 21, 2024 in General
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