Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues. It is 840. Sunny skies. Temperature at 56. And I'm happy to be joined by Stephanie Hessler from the Boys and Girls Club of Geneva. Good morning, Stephanie. How are you this morning?
Stephanie Hesler: Good morning. Glad to be here. Yeah, it's beautiful. Beautiful day.
Paul Szmal: It is a beautiful day. Yeah, a little cooler than last few. But yeah, I know you're gearing up for one of the major, if not the major, fundraiser that the Boys and Girls Club has every year, which is the annual dinner. And that's eight days away.
Stephanie Hesler: That's right. That's right. Yes. Next Thursday, October 16th at Club 86. We are looking forward to it. Cocktails at 530, dinner at 630. And before we get into what will be happening at the dinner, and I also want to talk about the invitations that went out and the flyer that was designed by one of the children at the Boys and Girls Club. I wanted to take people through what a typical day looks like to just kind of give an idea of the amount of stuff that the Boys and Girls Club offers and the amount of people that it takes to actually make that happen. What time do things get fired up in the morning?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so actually, it might be even easier or so to kind of give you a picture of a week because things are happening, different things are happening each day. And I often describe this to people as a sort of a choreography that we do throughout the week.
Stephanie Hesler: Yeah, understandable.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. And first thing, Tuesday through Friday, we usually kick off with our First Thousand Days Toddler Time program. Director Ryan Hughes gets there, gets to the Carter Road site quite early. And actually, sometimes we're doing some programming down at the Goodman or Courtyard Apartment community room as well. So you have to, she's great about Facebook updates and so I have to watch for specific location. But usually, she's at the Carter Road site. She's there early and from 9 to noon, Toddler Time happens. So she gets our gym set up with all kinds of wonderful toys and then families, children and families, parents can come in, grandparents, caretakers can come in and that happens at noon.
And then, so generally after school, so we have a kind of a switch over a midday, Tuesday through Friday and then after school at about 2.30, 3 o'clock when at Carter Road, our North Street students are coming over after school at our Goodman Street site. Students from West Street are going there. We've got kindergarten through second grade at Goodman and then three through eight at Carter along with our junior staff, which is our internship program for ninth through twelfth graders that are there with us as well. So there's a switch there.
Tuesday and Thursday nights, we have Pickleball. And that's quite, if you play or if you know about it, it's kind of, you know, it's a thing. It's really caught on over the past few years.
Stephanie Hesler: It's caught on. It's a thing. We have some very serious people that come in and some will come just a little more lighthearted and for fun. So that's happening in the evenings. And then on Wednesday, Wednesday morning, and so I'll get to see them this morning, we have a seniors group, senior citizens that come in and they generally have a, make a meal, have lunch together. They play cards, they have some time to socialize and that's great fun for them. It's a wonderful group of people. So we have them there until about one or two on Wednesdays, once a week.
And then on Wednesdays and Fridays, midday. So this is kind of a quick switch for us when toddler time gets put away. That's kind of a quick turnaround for our Geezer Ball program, which is a self-named program for gentlemen over the age of 50, generally, to come and play. The goals are, from what I understand, to not get hurt and have a workout and just to have fun. So those are kind of the highlights. There's a lot of quick changes and that's only kind of our main programming.
We also have Food Link twice a month. It's outside, but also impacts because of the cars. It impacts some things there. And then we have some outside partners who come in and do some different things. And we choreograph there because our regulators, you know, we're limited as far as having other guests in the building while our after-school program is running. And so they very, you know, wonderfully accommodate coming after that and evenings for rehearsals and then production, things like that.
Paul Szmal: And all of this is possible because you have not only a dedicated core staff that works, but you have volunteers that help out. And then you have the 9 to 12 students that are in the internship program that are helping out as well.
Stephanie Hesler: They've been super, yep. And, you know, we have a board of directors who's very supportive. We have a lot of, you know, the Geneva 2030 has a birth to B2K program, they call it, that's very supportive of that toddler time work. And so we do. We have different people and different partners who are constantly leaning in and we're so grateful for that.
Paul Szmal: A lot of different partnerships happening. And the Food Link distribution, that relies heavily on volunteer help to make that go.
Stephanie Hesler: Yeah, sure does. I think there's probably, gosh, maybe 10 to 15 or so people who are very, very dedicated. Food Link runs twice a month, usually, not always the same day of the month. So that's another thing to watch on Facebook. And, yeah, they just, they make it happen. And Susan Tolleson leads that and just sort of makes it all work with the number of, we don't always know exactly the number of cars that are going to come, and the amount of families, because you can pick up food for other families. But it's, it's kind of like magic that just works out.
Paul Szmal: And this is why donations matter.
Stephanie Hesler: Absolutely, yes. We rely very much on that community support for all of these different programs. We have a pretty, you might not know it, but, you know, we have a pretty small and lean staff. And so we have, you know, there's probably about 30 of us right now. The core of that group is after-school programming, because we need to have, be in ratio for children. But the rest is done by a pretty slim crew. You know, one handyman, and, you know, some people who are jacks of all trades, or jills of all trades, doing lots of things. So we're very lucky that people are very passionate about this mission.
Paul Szmal: And this is why this dinner is an important fundraiser.
Stephanie Hesler: Absolutely, yes. And we're very excited. It's coming together nicely, happening next Thursday, like I mentioned. And yes, we're still accepting sponsorships and individual tickets at this point. So we're glad to have more people. And there's a variety of sponsorship levels people can get involved in.
Paul Szmal: There are, yep. You know, if you want to come with 10 of your closest friends, or nine of your closest friends, at the top, a principal role sponsor, you know, and this is sort of nicely laid out, a high honor roll mentor, friends of the kids, and individual dinners are available. So, you know, if you're wanting to come with nine of your friends, that's topping at $1,800 for that cost, down to friends at $150, and then individual dinner tickets are $75.
Stephanie Hesler: And the flyer for this, and the invitation, was actually designed by one of the children who participate.
Paul Szmal: It was, yes. Our friend Ava, who will be at the dinner. She is scheduled to be at the dinner. So over the summer, there was an opportunity for members to do a little artwork and drawing around what they might see in their future. And part of the prompt was around, you know, looking through glasses, or sunglasses, or glasses. And if you've seen the poster, you know, this really jumped out to our committee. I have to do a shout out to the committee who is doing so much work for this event.
In her glasses, she's got some palm trees. She's traveling on one side. On the other side, that looks like a play button, maybe for YouTube, and the words, content creator, which I think is probably a pretty trendy job goal for many young people. But it's just super cute, you know, with her braces showing. Very colorful drawing, and so it really jumped out to the committee. And then, just to add to that, we had six or seven other kiddos who did some drawings, and it wasn't chosen for this invitation. However, we have, we are in the midst, we're working with our John Kamara, our printer, to turn them into note cards. So including Ava's, there'll be a little stack of about seven note cards. So you'll get to take home, if you wish, it's, I think we're charging maybe $10 for this little pack, and you can have one of each, a note card of one of each of these pieces of artwork. So kind of a fun thing to have.
Stephanie Hesler: Yeah, absolutely. How do people get tickets for the dinner?
Paul Szmal: So right now, the best way to do that is to either email or call. Our main number is 315-759-6060. Susan Tolleson is our business manager and event planner. Susan.Tolleson, T-O-L-L-E-S-O-N, at GenevaBGC.org. Or myself, Stephanie.Hessler, at GenevaBGC.org. I'd be happy to help corral if that's helpful. Because, and the reason we're doing that sort of old school is because our website is currently under construction. And we do hope or anticipate revealing our new site at the dinner. So that'll be something to look forward to there. And a lot of other nice, fun, and I think meaningful and impactful things happening at the dinner as well.
Stephanie Hesler: And I forgot to ask where the dinner was at.
Paul Szmal: Well, Club 86. Sorry, we're going to the club at the club.
Stephanie Hesler: Yeah, right over on, is it Avenue E? I think is the exact address.
Paul Szmal: Yep. But definitely people, we need a reservation. Oh, it's always a crowd favorite to go to Club 86.
Stephanie Hesler: Yeah, we have, I believe we're running at about 175 people, 150 to 175 at the moment. So we definitely want to make sure everybody has a seat. They have a lot of space there, for sure. But yeah, so we're very excited about it. I want to shout out Vance, our presenting sponsor. They've always been a great partner to us. And yeah, we would just love to really fill the room.
We have some special things planned, like I mentioned. We've lost a couple of folks, Dr. Ken Steadman, and then Fred Brockway, two big supporters of ours. And so we're going to recognize them. We've got some other previous member or, and actually one employee we're working on just kind of some, a couple of interviews that we plan to share and just kind of share some stories about what the club, what the experience at the Boys and Girls Club and the afterschool program has meant to these people in their lives.
Paul Szmal: I appreciate the information, Stephanie. Thank you so much. And I hope you fill the place up for dinner on the 16th.
Stephanie Hesler: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Yes, absolutely. It is 8.53 on FLX morning.
