To say the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County has faced its share of adversity over the last year is probably a gross understatement.
What isn’t, though, is how the nonprofit organization weathered those setbacks and is coming out on top. The clubs serve nearly 600 children a day at sites stretching from Carpinteria to Santa Barbara’s Westside and Goleta, and Buellton to Lompoc.
“It really dates back to early 2017,” Michael Baker, CEO of the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County, told Noozhawk.
At that time, in February 2017, the county was hit with a series of back-to-back major rain-and-wind storm events, and there was flooding across the South Coast, including at the Carpinteria club, where two of the facility’s rooms were inundated and the roof was close to collapsing because of water buildup.
“We didn’t close for services,” Baker said about those days the Carpinteria club was out of commission because of flooding.
“We bused kids to other locations. It’s not an option in our organization to close.”
And because the organization also operates on a tight budget with a limited staff, it’s usually also not an option to hire individuals to sweep water off roofs in situations such as those that winter.
Baker did the job himself, in part because he didn’t want to jeopardize another staff member’s safety, and also because he knew if the roof collapsed, the organization would be faced with a huge bill with no funds to pay, he said.
“I knew the whole time I was up there sweeping off the water, we would get (financial support from the community),” he said. “I remember it vividly. This is the most generous community I have worked in in my whole life.
“And when you are doing good things, people go out of their way to help you.”
Following the flood at the Carpinteria club site, the Boys & Girls Clubs was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara to replace the roof, Baker said. The community also stepped up and donated money to the effort.
The Carpinteria club serves nearly 120 kids a day, from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Not long after the organization celebrated its Carpinteria reopening with a new roof and dried out interior rooms, Baker said his phone rang on July 8 during a midafternoon barbecue. The caller told him Camp Whittier — the organization’s private, outdoor camp above Lake Cachuma — was on fire.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Baker said, noting he was at his home in Buellton at the time and, by the time he got to the traffic circle near Highway 154, authorities had shut down the highway and wouldn’t let him through.
“I thought, ‘We have lost Camp Whittier,’” he recalled.
He said the significance of losing the 94-acre camp, which could be rented for single day use or weeklong retreats, was that it hadn’t been making money for the organization until just before the blaze, dubbed the Whittier Fire.
“It was struggling … a break-even proposition at best,” he said. “It doesn’t pay the bills.”
Baker added that the camp’s new directors had turned the property around, which in turn was financially helping the Boys & Girls Clubs.
It costs about $1,200 per child for all the services provided to club kids, but they are only charged $40. The organization mainly serves lower income families and never turns anyone away because of an inability to pay.
The fee to attend the week-long Camp Whittier session is $500, while the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Camp the organization runs is free, Baker said.
“I always make the joke that we are a nonprofit, and we do a really good job of not making a profit,” Baker said with a laugh.
After the Whittier Fire raged through the property, the camp was closed for six months. All of the revenue that would have been generated during those months was lost, and any money that was already paid in reservation fees had to be refunded.
The money isn’t kept in a separate fund and spent as necessary by the organization, Baker explained.
“When the money is coming in, we use it as needed,” he said. “It was very challenging, to say the least.”
Despite losing much of the outdoor facility to the flames, not all was lost as first thought, as was at nearby Rancho Alegre, which is operated by the Los Padres Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Baker said his organization partnered with the Scouts for a win-win situation.
The Scouts were able to use Camp Whittier for six months and the Boys & Girls Clubs was able to see some revenue generated from the partnership.
“We work with everyone,” Baker said. “I don’t see it as competition. We are all in the same business of helping kids, and it also helped us because it generated revenue that we didn’t have at the time.”
Following the Whittier Fire, adversity took a backseat at the organization for several months until early December 2017 when the Thomas Fire broke out near Santa Paula and quickly spread into southern Santa Barbara County.
By the middle of month, school districts throughout the county made the call to close schools early because of air quality issues. The Boys & Girls Clubs hadn’t planned for the closures — and neither had its member parents.
Again, Baker said, closure isn’t an option for the organization.
“We didn’t have the money,” he said. “We didn’t have the staff.
“But we had kids who showed up. These are parents who can’t afford to miss work. They want to get their kids gifts.”
When the Buellton club had to close because of the poor air quality caused by the fire’s thick, choking smoke, the organization bused kids to the Goleta and Lompoc clubs. Parents also weren’t charged fees during the time that schools were closed because of the Thomas Fire.
“It was the right thing to do,” Baker said. “And we didn’t stop services.”
He said during the aftermath of the deadly Montecito flash flooding and mud and debris flows, the organization’s vans were made available and used by the Bucket Brigade every weekend during cleanup efforts.
“Why would we not let them be used?” Baker asked. “It’s just crazy. They just sit there on the weekend.”
The United Boys & Girls of Santa Barbara County serves children ages 5-18 years old at nine locations across the county. Click here for more information, or click here to make an online donation.
— Noozhawk contributing writer April Charlton can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkSociety, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.
