San Mateo County Boys & Girls Clubs merging

Three Boys & Girls Club organizations in San Mateo County are merging, with high-level executives calling the decision one that will provide better programs, resources and services to kids.

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, Mid-Peninsula Boys and Girls Club and Boys and Girls Clubs of North San Mateo County will become the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. The merger will not result in any layoffs. Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula co-CEOs Peter Fortenbaugh and Jenny Obiaya said joining forces will help empower kids throughout San Mateo County.

“We want to collectively better serve youths and families within San Mateo County. We think that by sharing talents and resources with these two other Boys and Girls Clubs, we can greatly increase our impact and better serve families,” Obiaya said.

Obiaya said the merger would create a stronger, more unified organization focused on equitable access to social, academic and career opportunities to thrive. Rather than focusing on one city, it will now be able to invest in the greatest unmet needs in the county. Its commitment is to bring more resources to kids in the northern part of San Mateo County. East Palo Alto and parts of Menlo Park have received free access to academic support, mental health resources, social and emotional learning, college access and sports leagues. Its goal is to ensure immigration status, money, or language spoken at home is not a barrier to accessing services, she added.

“We want to bring those programs up to northern parts of the county where they might not have those resources,” Obiaya said. We’ve spent a lot of time meeting superintendents and community partners to understand where is the greatest unmet need and what programs are people looking for.”

Obiaya said wealthier areas like San Francisco and Silicon Valley get more investment than surrounding suburbs. BGCP has been close to wealthy funding and investments in Silicon Valley, but clubs in the middle of the Peninsula and northern San Mateo County are not as geographically close and have fewer funding opportunities.

“We hear that places like Daly City and South San Francisco don’t always get the same type of love and investment from the community. The kids and families there are just as deserving of these types of resources and opportunities,” she said.

BGCP will have a single management team led by co-CEOs Obiaya and Fortenbaugh, with Rob Burgess continuing as chair. It will also have a single compensation structure, board and brand.

BGCP has talked about a merger for several years but did not feel the time was right for the southern part of the county. Obiaya said the decision seemed right because BGCP had expanded into all the schools it wanted in the county’s southern end and had enough resources available for expansion. Clubs in Half Moon Bay are not being merged. While Boys & Girls Club has not decided on what resources and programs it will bring north, the initial thought is to focus on extended learning programs at K-8 sites after school. It is also looking at using separate Boys & Girl Club clubhouse spaces as high school centers that offer academic support, enrichment and college programs.

“While the mid-Peninsula and North County have some of that already, we are trying to support doing more than that,” Obiaya said.

BGCP has 17 sites with 224 staff. Around 100 are full time, and 120 are part time. Mid-Peninsula has five sites, with 12 full-time staff and 15 part-time. North San Mateo County has five sites, with nine full-time staff and 18 part-time. During the pandemic, BGCP used its facilitates for meal distribution of around 480,000 meals with the help of about 1,000 volunteers. It also opened learning hubs to help students who needed a space to study and increased mental health services.

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 102