Club News

Manassas children to get greater access to Boys and Girls Club

Thursday, January 19, 2012

MANASSAS, Va. -- There may be some children in Georgetown South who want to go to the Boys and Girls Club after school, but can’t because they didn’t have a way to get there. Now they do. The Boys and Girls Club of Manassas now has a bus service dedicated to taking children a little more than a mile back-and-forth between the club at 9501 Dean Park Lane and the Georgetown South Community Center at 9444 Taney Road.

Activities Bus Connects Georgetown South with Boys & Girls Club

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

With donated sports equipment stacked high and a brigade of extra chairs handed out to overflow children and parents inside the Georgetown South Community Center, two young boys wormed their way toward a better view, looked up and stopped. “That’s the Mayor,” one whispered to the other as Mayor Harry J. “Hal” Parrish II passed, stopped, and shook their hands. The occasion was the launch of an activities bus that will transport children and youth from the Georgetown South Community Center to the Manassas Boys & Girls Club, Tuesday-Friday, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:45 p.m., starting January 31.

Four to Help Revitalize Georgetown South Neighborhood

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Editor's Note: The below information is from the City's October 2011 Town Hall Newsletter. The City has been awarded a federal grant, totalling $70,000, to employ four AmeriCorps VISTA members to lead the revitalization of the Georgetown South Community. The City has provided the four VISTAs will be working out of the Manassas Boys and Girls Club and three of the four will be living in the very community they are working to improve. The four VISTAs introduced themselves to City officials at the Sept. 12 Council meeting:

Boys & Girls Club Youth of the Month - September

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Dale City & Manassas, Virginia – The Boys & Girls Club’s Youth of the Month program encourages good citizenship and civic responsibility. Adult mentoring and guidance reinforce the disciplines needed for a life of public service. Each month, staff select a Youth of the Month who demonstrates exemplary character and often serve as leaders to their peers.

Heartbeat of Educational Passion Felt at Jennie Dean

Monday, July 25, 2011

Quoting the African proverb that “it takes a village to raise a child,” historic interpreter Marion Dobbins conveyed to the crowd at the Jennie Dean Historical Park the tremendous community spirit involved in the area’s first high school for colored youth.

150th Anniversary of Battle of Bull Run Remembered

Friday, July 22, 2011

A group of kids from the Boys and Girls Club of Prince William County take a look at a 10-pound parrot rifle at Camp Manassas on Thursday. The parrot rifle was capable of hitting targets a mile and a half away, according to Mike DeAngelo, who is a living historian camping out for the weekend. This particular cannon was used in the Civil War movie "Gods and Generals."

A Day in the Life of the Boys & Girls Club

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Hylton Branch of the Boys & Girls Club will hold weekly summer camps for area children through August 26, 2011. The club will be closed for the week preceeding the start of the 2011-2012 Prince William County school year, said Hylton Branch director Keeyana Mohoney.

The Boys & Girls Club and High Tech? They Mix

Monday, May 23, 2011

THE Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which traces its history back 150 years to civic-minded Connecticut women who wanted to help get impoverished boys off the streets, is turning to 21st-century social media, including Twitter, to garner support for its mission. The organization wants to shed its “swim and gym” image and focus on its state-of-the-art technology offerings for students. Its principal supporters are mothers and other women, so it plans to appeal to them by holding its first Twitter party on Tuesday to spread word of its Club Tech centers, which provide computers, software and technology instruction. “These are critical vehicles for our audience,” she said of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, “because our messages get out in a real, timely and relevant way.”

Whiz Kids: Brothers to Renovate Boys & Girls Club for Service Project

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Two brothers are looking to help the local Boys & Girls Club by creating a theater and dance room for members to use as part of their Eagles Scout project. Bryan and Alex Habashi are twins and members of Bull Run District Troop 1360. As part of their service project to become Eagle Scouts, they will each transform a general multi-purpose room at the club into rooms with a specific purpose for area youth.

Manassas Boys and Girls Club Gets New Sign (Finally)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Boys and Girls Club of Manassas now has an official sign thanks to efforts by club staff and members of the community and the City of Manassas. Metro Sign and Design located in Manassas not only helped build and create the new sign but also helped with some of its cost.

Chris Montanez oversees Manassas Boys and Girls Club Athletics

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Footballs and training equipment stay in Chris Montanez’s office. The words “Mr. Chris” are on his wooden door and he still has the photographs of his days as a high school football coach. They are reminders of times he has enjoyed working with area youth and of how he still impacts lives of those seeking after-school structure. Slowly but surely, Montanez is settling into his full-time position as athletic director at the Manassas Boys and Girls Club. He began his role last November after working in a temporary capacity by running football camps for the Club in August. But he will not spend his days in his office chair filling out paperwork and having his eyes glued to his computer screen.

Gang prevention summit exposes problems facing officials

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. — When gang prevention officials wanted to start a soccer club to give at-risk youth better options for free time, they found even the simplest of tasks to be more than they bargained for: the naming of the team Following great debate, they settled on Soccer Crew 9540. “Coming up with the number was difficult,” said Rick Buchholz, a coordinator with the Gang Response Intervention Team, a group dedicated to providing community support to police for gang prevention activities. Numbers 13 and 81, and their mathematical equivalents, for instance, were definite ‘no’s’, as both could be construed to signify established gangs – MS-13 and Hell’s Angels, with the latter’s initials defined by numerical placement in the alphabet. “They can take a number and twist it to represent their gang,” Buchholz said. So GRIT members turned the tables and devised a creative solution with a meaningful message. Juvenile Court Services in Manassas is located at 9540 Center Street in Manassas. Name aside, the program – just one of several GRIT efforts to intercede in the lives of youth who have turned to gangs or are considering joining a gang – has proven successful.

Manassas Bike Shop to Help Boys & Girls Club Celebrate Birthday

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

?Bull Run Bicycles in Manassas is helping the Carteret Mortgage Branch Boys and Girls Club in Manassas celebrate its 6th birthday Wednesday by donating twelve bikes for use among its members. Danny Quirk is owner of Bull Run Bikes in Manassas and has spent the last few weeks restoring donated bicycles to present to the club. The bike shop will present the bikes during a four-hour, event-filled birthday bash planned for Wednesday, January 5th.

Youth of the Month - Yaneli Mercedes & Tyler Helm

Monday, December 13, 2010

MANASSAS, Va. - -- The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington-Prince William/Manassas Branches have announced the Youth of the Month recipients. The youths for November of the 2010-2011 School Year are Yaneli Mercedes and Tyler Helm. Mercedes is an 8-year-old member of the Manassas unit. She loves to participate in every Club program offered to her age group and she is a role model to other members by being respectful to everyone. Helm is 11 years old and in the sixth grade. He attends the Hylton branch in Dale City where he participates in a variety of Club events and activities including Power Hour: Homework Help, Summer Camp and the Guitars not Guns program.

Manassas Neighborhoods Recognized At Conference

Monday, November 22, 2010

MANASSAS, Va. The City of Manassas honored five neighborhoods with “Neighborhood of the Year’ awards at its annual Neighborhood Conference recently at the Boys and Girls Club of Manassas. Sumner Lake Homeowners Association was honored with the “Best Neighborhood Communication/Involvement” award of its response to the Sept. 23 fire that destroyed three houses, damaged five others and displaced 11 residents on Tillet Loop. Residents turned the neighborhood’s website into a vital communications link to identify victim needs and spread the word to meet those needs. The association opened its community center to shelter fire victims and collected more than $10,000 in cash, clothes, food, household items and furniture. Donations are still being collected through the holidays. Point of Woods 1 & 2 and Point of Woods 3 Homeowners Associations were cited with a joint “Best Neighborhood Group Effort” Award. They pooled resources to launch a Neighborhood Watch and host activities such as a fall festival to build community involvement, despite the financial hardship of last winter’s snow removal. Cannon Ridge Homeowners Association won the “Best Back Yard/Storage Area” award for staging a community walk -through to identify issues such as fallen trees and exposed wires and the addressing of those issues. They also organized a creek cleanup. Wildwood Condominium Association captured the “Best Curb Appear” award for modeling a clean community and adding a beautiful entrance sign and playground. Other highlights of the day-long conference included:

Teddy Bears T-shirts In Honor of Sey-J

Monday, November 15, 2010

MANASSAS, Va. - -- With crayons and T-shirts, children at the Manassas Boys and Girls Club set out to honor the memory of one of their own Saturday afternoon. In the club’s ceramics room, dozens of children used fabric crayons to decorate T-shirts for teddy bears and other stuffed animals that will be donated to children at the Children’s Hospital Oncology Unit. The project was designed in memory of Sey-J Lansdowne, a Boys and Girls Club member who died of leukemia this summer...

What America Cares About: A Voice for Kids

Friday, November 05, 2010

‘Like so many parents these days, my father worked two and three jobs to take care of us,” says Academy Award winner Denzel Washington, who credits the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) with helping him stay out of trouble. Washington has been a BGCA spokesperson for 18 years—w ork that’s become more important than ever amid reports that dropout rates are approaching 50% in some American communities. The U.S. is now the only industrialized country in the world where young people are less likely than their parents to graduate from high school. “The hours between 3 and 6 p.m. are critical,” Washington says. “That’s when kids need homework help, tutors, and mentors, but many are going home to empty houses.” Or no houses at all. Mona Dixon’s family of four often had to sleep in separate homeless shelters in Tempe, Ariz., so each one could have a bed. When the shelters were full, Mona would do her homework in a cardboard box under a streetlight. She says that joining the Boys & Girls Club in sixth grade made all the difference: “It felt safe, like a family, and brought stability to my life.” A captain of her high school basketball team and a member of the National Honor Society, Mona, 17, graduated third in her high school class in May and is now a freshman at Arizona State University.

City Captures State Award For Youth Project

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

The city captured the “State Neighborhood Youth Effort of the Year” for its national pilot “1 By Youth” project that took place on April 24 in the Georgetown South neighborhood. Christen Zenich, Manassas neighborhood coordinator, accepted the award on behalf of a community partnership at the 11th annual Virginia Statewide Neighborhood Conference in Roanoke on Sept. 25. The partnership included Colorado-based Group Cares, Mike Garcia Construction, Habitat for Humanity of Prince William County, The Carteret Boys & Girls Club, Manassas Assembly of God and United in the Community. More than 1,000 teen and adult volunteers from three states participated in the massive one day, one community

100 Best Communities for Young People 2010 Winners

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Prince William County (PWC) is recognized for the first time as a 100 Best community through its strong promotion of youth development programs focused on physical, social, educational and moral growth..... Most notable were the combined efforts of local government and businesses to fund construction of two facilities dedicated to youth development. One is a community center/day care facility in the most socio-economically depressed housing area and the other is the largest Boys and Girls Club in Virginia. These two facilities made a positive impact on school attendance, academic performance, and safety in the community. Another successful collaboration -- Comprehensive Child Study (CCS) -- addresses students' poor academic performance caused by issues outside the school. CCS is a partnership of staffs from school and the County's social services, mental health, juvenile probation, and parent education services to solve issues within families...

Students Learn The Importance of Higher Education

Monday, July 19, 2010

Manassas, Va. - About a dozen teenagers from the Manassas and Hylton boys and Girls Club visited the Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College last week as art of a new summer program for teenagers. The youth, ages 15 to 18, were welcomed to the campus by Dean of Students Mark Kidd who talked about the importance of attending college. The teenagers also learned about opportunities available to them while they are still in high school, such as dual enrollment. Jenni Barlet explained NVCC's dual enrollment program which allows high school students to earn both high school and college credit for the same classes and gives students a head start on college. NVCC Counselor Asante Clarke presented a motivational program on turning dreams into reality. "We had a very interactive session about choosing the right career and how the students can accom-plish their goals," Clarke said. "The students were extremely talkative and involved. We discussed ways to overcome obstacles and challenges and they gave me lots of feedback. They were a great group and we had a lot of energy in the room," she added. After lunch in the cafeteria, the students participated in a hands-on biotechnology experiment led by NVCC biology instructors Brenda Rodman and Alen Karamian. After donning white lab coats and blue gloves, the students learned to use pipettes to pick up small amounts of liquids to prepare a gel for DNA analysis. 'The teenagers were very engaged and seemed really interested in learning the proper tech-niques," Rodman said. "They understand about forensics because they see it on so many television programs." According to Lylliam Rodman, teen director for the Manassas Boys and Girls Club, the summer teen camp is a new program this year designed to expose teenagers to a wide variety of experiences such as career prep workshops, higher education opportunities, community service projects, and indoor and outdoor sports. The campers have also been going on field trips to fun places such as Kings Dominion and the National Zoo. "The program was designed to provide the teenagers with a balance between recreational activities and preparation for entering college and the workforce. The teens take part in weekly workshops on college and career prep, as well as computer workshops in photo and video editing with their final project being posted on our website," said Rodriguez. Some of the partners of the program beside NVCC include Kohl's, Taco Bell, Old Navy, Prince William SPCA, Manassas ATCT, City of Manassas, Project Infusion and the Prince William County Sher-iff's Office. Participant Lauren Jackson said "I enjoyed the entire day ... but particularly the science pro-ject." Destiny Moore said "I learned a lot. I was thinking about a career in DNA testing and it was great working in the lab today." Staff writer Bennie Scarton Jr. can be reached at 703-369-6707