By Linda MacKay

The Boys & Girls Club of Frazier Mountain celebrated its third year of operation in June and it has touched the lives of over a thousand of our Mountain Community’s children and teens. We’re proud of our efforts, but we’re worried.

As everyone struggles with the poor economy, we are seeing that it is more and more difficult for parents to pay membership fees. With fewer grant funds available, we’re less able to provide full or partial scholarships for families who could really use the help. We’ve started cutting back on staff and other expenses. As we reduce our expenses, we have to reduce what we can offer the children.

We hope in this season of giving those who are able will consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Boys & Girls Club of Frazier Mountain. You can mail in your donations to P.O. Box 1902, Frazier Park, CA 93225.

This is not only ‘A Fun and Safe Place To Be’ (one of our mottos), but the club is also a nurturing and enriching place for young people to spend their time after school and during school breaks.

The Frazier Mountain club has very dedicated staff and volunteers who all believe that we can help encourage, guide and direct the children in our care to be happy and well adjusted human beings.

We need your help to continue. If you’re not able to contribute financially, we hope you will consider donating gently used items to the club’s Name Your Price Thrift Store. The store has consistently been the club’s biggest fundraiser. Also, the store and the club are always in need of volunteers. The store has been able to provide approximately one third of the club’s yearly budget throughout the club’s existence. But again, with the reduction in our other funding sources, we’re worried. We’re not sure we’ll be able to continue to keep our doors open. We hope those who can will continue to give us support.

Everyone at the Frazier Mountain Boys & Girls Club wishes all Mountain Community residents a happy holidays. Please come by and visit us. The children would love to show off their Clubhouse and tell you what they’ve been up to. The club is located at 3824 Park Drive in Frazier Park—across from Frazier Mountain Park. Call (661) 245-2678 for Kristina Graves or Helenna Forrester for more information, or Linda MacKay at (661) 248-6224.

This is part of the December 25, 2009 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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