New Boys & Girls Clubs CEO starts job

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn.

The new president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America started his first day on the job Monday in the city where the movement began 151 years ago, saying it’s time for “a better life” for children.

Jim Clark visited members at the club in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood on the final day of their winter vacation. He spoke to them about the importance of staying in school, keeping physically active and not bullying.

For the past eight years, Clark was CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee where he more than doubled the number of young people who are served by the clubs and created programs that improved literacy and high school graduation rates. He said children today face “a very fragile” economic system, and the nation is at a crossroads.

As the new national Boys & Girls Clubs president, he said he plans to start a campaign to raise awareness about the problems kids face — such as one in five living in poverty and three out of 10 dropping out of high school — and how the clubs can help.

Clark said the youths served by the clubs, many located in urban neighborhoods, “deserve nothing less than a strong start to life and a chance to overcome the obstacles that they’ve been dealt.”

“It’s time for a better life for kids here in America,” he said.