The Club has been receiving a large number of inquiries recently about summer and next school year. The Club has been working hard to juggle staffing shortages, the move to the new building, and planning for the summer, but the major hold-up right now is staffing and funding.
As with every other business in town, the Club is struggling to retain and recruit staff. Rising rents, higher living costs and the limitations of a not-for-profit budget is making it hard to fill our staff vacancies and we will be undertaking a recruitment push in April and May to hire as many staff as possible for the summer and beyond. These additional staff are vital to our ability to serve more children (20 members per staff) and so if you know anyone looking for work, and who has a passion for children and mentoring, please send them our way!
One hope on the horizon is funding. The Club is in conversations regarding a new State grant that could provide considerable funding for both our summer and after-school programs. If successful, we may be able to reduce the cost of both programs. With rising gas prices etc we know that any savings help, and so we beg your patience while we work through the grant process. Fingers crossed the wait will be worth it!
However, although we won’t yet have finalized the summer fee costs, we will be putting out ‘interest forms’ for summer the week of April 18th. All parents who wish to be part of the summer program should complete a form. Filling out the form does not guarantee a place in the program, but it will help us plan and hopefully lead to an invitation to complete an application form. Our hope is to have fees set and a finalized summer enrollment by the beginning of June.
For the 2022/23 afterschool program we are currently in talks with LTUSD about expanding services. We understand that the earlier start and finish times for elementary students will place an even greater demand on afterschool programs and the Club is excited to provide all the additional support that we can. Our expectation is that we will have plans finalized by the start of the summer, and will start enrollment for the after-school at the beginning of August. Of course, once again the number of members we can support will depend on staffing.
So there is MUCH more information to come and we are keen to have the answers to as many questions as possible before we roll our plans out to parents and members. Thank you for your patience while we do our prep work and feel free to call the Club on 530 542 0838 with any questions.
