It is 701 p.m.

on Thursday, March 19th.

And I'll call this session of budget hearings for the 26-27 budget season.

Open.

And present with us tonight, members of the fiscal committee.

Myself, co-chair Eric Morrison from District 13.

Co-Chair Andrew Zachary from District 14.

Representative Virgil Delacruz from District 2.

Representative Kira Dorsey from District 5.

And Representative Emil Goldberg from District 13.

Also with us is Representative Terry Adams from District 3.

Our first guest tonight is Craig Baker from Boys and Girls Club.

Take it away, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Does it make sense for me to present slides, or is it better just to uh give you some background on what we're doing and uh what are asked?

Whatever whatever you see fit.

If you have slides to share with us, please feel free.

Okay, I'll do that.

Hang tight for one second, okay.

Uh good evening, and thanks everybody for the opportunity to uh present.

I'm Craig Baker, the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Stanford.

Uh before I begin, I do want to acknowledge uh that recently we had to make a facilities pivot uh at Yearwood and temporarily locate to Clunen Middle School due to some environmental issues in the building.

Uh want to let uh everybody know that we've had no lapse in programming.

Uh we continue to deliver fully on our mission, and uh we hope to be back in Yearwood as soon as possible.

Um prior to the facilities issue, uh, the core challenge we were uh trying to solve um was the increased demand for our services, uh specifically um trying to solve how we uh serve the hundred or so young people that were on our uh waiting list.

So I'll keep this real simple tonight.

Um just we'll remind people who we are, the challenge we're hoping to solve, uh, and the specific purpose of this year's uh request.

Uh as many of you know, the Boys and Girls Club of Stanford aims to provide safe structured and high impact after school and summer programming for young people across the city of Stanford.

Uh, we operate two main community center locations.

Uh we have our public school buses bringing youth directly to us each day.

So during the school year, um the demand for our services uh exceeds about 550 young people, youth uh uh 550 young people daily.

Um our role is pretty straightforward.

Uh, we hope to give young people a safe place to go, strong adult mentorship, and access to programming that will help them grow.

Uh, we serve young people and families with significant need.

Uh about 3,000 youth come through our door annually.

The vast majority of those we serve are for from lower income households.

Uh, for many families, uh, this is the difference between a child being a safe and productive environment or not.

The major issues driving our request uh tonight and uh annually uh is not uh a change in mission.

It's just in demand for our services.

Um before this uh yearwood's uh facilities pivot, as I mentioned, our main challenge was already clear.

How do we create more capacity and serve more kids uh in the most fiscally responsible way?

Uh so um, you know, I'm here because we have uh more demand than seats, and we need a practical way to serve young people who are already seeking us out.

We believe that we're well positioned to solve um you know a community need, a city of Stanford need because we have staff, uh the youth development uh model that's successful, the community trust and the daily operating experience to do what we do well.

Um just uh a reminder of what we offer, our programming spans academics, leadership, uh, athletics and well-being, uh, mental health and workforce development.

So the question we've been working on is simple is how do we create even more access for the young people who are on our waiting list?

And how do we do that in partnership with the city uh and providing um what we consider to be a uh a core community service?

Uh so in a nutshell, I think what you'll see is that I'll start here.

Uh, we have two partnerships with the city of Stanford.

Uh one is to provide a community night program for uh uh more disengaged and disconnected uh teenagers.

Uh so we open our uh our facilities uh in the evening, uh late into the night uh to up to 11 p.m.

Uh and then we also do a community swim program because as I'm sure you know, uh as far as I know, the two public uh pools, the two pools in the city of Stanford are uh Yearwood and then not uh all the way up until North Stanford and Hebrew Park.

Uh so the city has funded us to um uh do open swim and swimming lessons uh for people um, particularly in the West Side community, but but anyone in the city of Stanford.

Uh so our ask there is uh flat uh from previous years, just so that we can uh continue to provide both those services.

Uh we're we're where you will see an increase ask this year uh is um across our two uh main clubhouses, we'll call them.

Uh and the reason uh we're doing that is um we're requesting an additional hundred thousand dollars, uh which is fifty thousand dollars per line item here.

Um and it's really to solve that that hundred-plus uh young person waiting list.

Um we've looked uh and consulted with other partners in the city.

Um we have had conversations with um Stanford Police Department and Chief Shaw.

And uh given uh their operation of the PAL Center in Southwood Square, uh, we believe that uh a partnership would allow us to uh leverage an already existing building uh and in uh in a fiscally responsible way, partner with the uh PAL Center and the police uh to serve uh close to 100 young people uh from 230 to 6.30 Monday through Friday.