- [Narrator] Additional funding is provided by The Friends of KTWU.

- Welcome back to another episode of Working Capital.

On today's show, we focus on two great pillars in our community.

Join us for empowering futures.

It's all about business on Working Capital.

(upbeat electronic music) For decades, the Boys and Girls Club of Topeka has provided our children and teens a place to reach their full potential.

A safe place that no matter who you are or where you come from, you'll have access to many positive experiences and opportunities.

Joining us today to talk a little about all the good the club does for Topeka is Jennifer LeClair, Vice President of Marketing and Communications.

Welcome to Working Capital, Jennifer.

Tell us what's your vision?

What's your mission with the Boys and Girls Club of Topeka?

- You know, I think that we've continued to evolve to address the needs that our community has.

One good example of that is when the national organization was founded, it was the Boys Club, and locally here in Topeka, it remains the Boys Club until the eighties.

So, it's kind of a more recent kind change and you know, the girls that we serve are just as important as the boys and we continue to grow just to address where the needs exist.

We cover all four school districts at a lot of club locations that people don't always know about.

And we have a special facility that's just for our middle and high school teens that kind of separates them from the littles.

So, our vision for the future is just to continue to change our service delivery to meet kids and families where they're at.

- And I didn't realize how old you could go there, I didn't realize through high school even.

So really you're creating a space where people feel safe and kind of seen in a way, because you're filling a gap in some of these children's lives.

Correct?

- [Jennifer] Yes.

- Do you have any success story?

Do you have anyone since you've been there that you've seen some kind of growth from?

- Yes.

Yes.

In fact, so every year we have kind of an annual program called Youth of the Year.

It's usually our teens that participate in it.

And it's kind of a leadership development program that takes place throughout the year.

But then one of those teens is identified as our Youth of the Year and goes on to compete at the state competition and then hopefully the Midwest competition and on and on.

But sometimes these teens are kids that, maybe they're 17 years old now, but they've been attending clubs since they were five.

And to have that kind of steady presence in their lives for that out of school time, sometimes it's that they live in a single parent household where mom or dad have to work a lot and they don't have as much time at home.

And sometimes we have a lot of kids that parents work at Goodyear or the hospitals, and they're on shifts.

So we're able to kind of fill that gap, help with homework, help provide a safe place, warm meals so that when they do go home to their family, it's just quality time with their family and not a never-ending to-do list, right?

- Because you guys aren't babysitters.

I mean, it's not like a daycare center.

I mean, you guys really are enriching the lives, like you said, whether it's helping with homework, you even have athletic programs.

I think you've even helped with some nutrition.

So, I mean, across the board you're kind of hitting a lot of areas that unfortunately a lot of our children are lacking in.

So how do you get this great service out in the eyes of the children, let alone the parents, 'cause as parents who work a lot, may not know about these services.

I mean, how do you find the children who really need the help?

- You know, first it's about reaching the families, getting the word out there with our partners in the school districts to make sure that they know it's a resource.

If there's not gonna be anybody home when kiddo gets out of school, then the club is the great fit for them and they can come, they can get that homework help, they can participate in athletics, they can explore things that they're passionate about, arts, dance, music, things like that, that they might not have the financial means or the time to explore outside of the club in school.

So, you get the kids into the club and then they start seeing all the possibilities and the things that they can get connected with, and their passion ignites from there.

So you see it especially with our teens that have been with the program for a really long time, and they're able to do community volunteerism with Habitat for Humanity, and they really learn the value of giving back to the community that's given them so much.

- That is awesome.

Hearing that, so early on, those that are getting help are turning right around and giving it back to the community.

Really you guys are starting to nurture tomorrow's leaders today.

A lot of kids go through there, I think serve over 2000, I think a year individual, depending on whatever services they use.

It's gotta be a big budget.

So, being a business show, you have a lot of donations, a lot of funds coming in.

How do you guys find all those?

How do you guys find the capital to sustain this organization?

- You know, as with a lot of non-profits, we seek out grant funding that can help support the programs that we provide.

That's in acquiring really solid curriculums that we can present to the kids.

Sometimes you can apply some of your staff costs for the people that are administering those programs.

But we really rely on donors and unrestricted giving to pay our light bill and make sure that we can pay our staff fair salaries for the hard work and the valuable work that they're doing.

So it's really a mix with a budget of our size, a lot of federal, state, and local grant funding, and then of course, the generosity of the people that see the value in what we're doing.

- Now do you have any of special events throughout the year that you all do?

I think you just had a special event a couple days ago, so how do you find people that really help bring the checkbooks out?

- Yes.

Well, we do have kind of a network of businesses here in Topeka that are regular supporters of the club and what we do.

So our first stop is to go to them and get them engaged in what we're doing.

The pandemic kind of changed our delivery for special events because we didn't feel like gathering was safe for such a long time.

So we're tiptoeing back into the special event front at this point, but there are always opportunities for corporate entities or individuals to get involved or attend.

So the best way to find out about that stuff is of course our website or our Facebook page.

But we're just constantly reinventing and figuring out what people want to come to.

- And there's also opportunities just to volunteer there, right?

So tell me the kind of levels that people can come in and just help with their time?

- Right.

Time is such a valuable thing for us.

We have groups of individuals that come in, whether it's a team builder or just a group of people that wanna kind of do a feel good project.

There's always kind of the organizing our storage space, cleaning the building, things like that.

But then we're part of Share Fest every year where they do substantial work to usually the exteriors of our club sites.

And mentoring is a great way for people to build kind of a longstanding connection with either a kid or a group of kids, because we ask that our mentors make themselves available for one hour per week.

And it's really a consistency thing because if our kids know that a caring adult is gonna show up for them regularly, consistency and be there for them once a week, they build a relationship that goes on beyond the years spent in the club.

So, it's a really valuable experience for both parties.

- [Jay] That's fantastic.

It's time for a short break.

When we return, we'll find a few ways you can help too.

We'll be right back.

You're watching Working Capital.

(upbeat electronic music) Welcome back.

We were just talking about some volunteer opportunities even there, so I'm curious though, whether it's volunteer or staff, how many of your graduates have come back to help in this just because their lives were changed so much, I'm guessing there's a few?

- Yes, actually, we've got quite a pool of current staff and staff that come and work our summer programs because we have five summer enrichment programs and many of those staff were themselves club members, and they just remember the memories and the value that they gained from the club and they wanna be a part of it.

So especially our club members that go on to maybe attend Washburn University or somewhere near, and then they're able to get a job with us either part-time during the school year or during the summer, that's how we often see them re-engaging in the club.

It's awesome.

- So what's on the horizon for the Boys and Girls Club?

You know, with the pandemic, with all everything changing, have you guys had to adapt the way you have services?

Is there any at-home services, whether it's being able to check in on Zoom or anything else?

How have you adapted?

- So throughout the pandemic we had a virtual learning calendar that had kind of programs that kids could watch if they couldn't be in the club for any reason.

We have done less of that now because we have kind of ushered back to more of a full capacity for especially our programs that we offer in the clubs.

But one thing that we've really spent a lot of time focusing on recently is we've hired a new health and wellness coordinator at our teen center, and our teens operate, another thing that people don't know, they operate their own food pantry.

And it's not just for the kids at the club, but it's to serve the entire East Topeka community around the club because they saw their neighbors were in need and our teens wanted to give back.

So twice a month our teens manage the inventory, they pack up food boxes and they're really building out that addressing that basic need for the community, but also seeing what it's like to give back to others in need, so it's something that we're very proud of.

- So really you're empowering them to change their own communities already at their own ages?

- Exactly.

And it was their decision, they came to staff, it's been about four or five years ago now, they came to staff and said, hey, there was another food pantry in our neighborhood, it closed.

These people are in need, what can we do?

And they wrote up a business plan and this is something that they've been doing now for all of these years, and it's driven by the teens and their efforts.

- With how good that is going, Topeka does have a few food deserts.

Have they thought of expanding their own ideas into some of these other neighborhoods?

- Yeah, one thing that we kind of started during the pandemic and we continue now is, we have club locations that are located in some of these food desert areas, we have Montara Club that's out in the Montara community.

We know that there's not a lot of healthy food access around there.

So on food pantry days or on the days that we have holiday food boxes that we can distribute, our teens when they have a school day out, will load up a van with staff and a bunch of boxes and deliver them to people that live too far away to access the teen center.

So it's definitely something that they're always looking for a way that they can reach the people that can't reach us.

- That's fantastic.

And and speaking of that, the Topeka Boys and Girls Club, but like you said, you have outreach in Montara, there's outreach in Elmont, Auburn, I mean it's really Shawnee County is kind of what you've grown out to encompass.

How do the programs at those smaller places compare to the Adams Street, which is when I think Boys and Girls Club, that's what I think of.

So it's hard for me to wrap my head around 14 places now that you guys are helping youth.

- [Jennifer] Yeah, that's our trademark club.

So people of course know of the Adams Club, 11 of our sites are school-based sites.

So, our Auburn location is in Auburn Elementary, Elmont is in Elmont Elementary.

And so the only real difference in that service delivery we still do before school, after school programming.

But if they have a school closure for like a snow day or a weather related day or even just a scheduled day, we consolidate those sites at other sites.

So I guess on the day to day, the programs look a lot the same.

We're running the same programs no matter what site they're at.

But then during the summer and the winter breaks, you'll see people kind of consolidating at five of our primary sites.

- So with your service, usually before school to after school, but with a lot of these kids, I know you guys are filling kind of the gaps in their lives.

What happens when someone just needs to talk to someone, say on a weekend?

Is there anything out there that is club oriented to where they can at least talk to a mentor or get some help on the weekends if they needed to?

- You know, not in a direct service way, but we do have all of our club directors in each of our areas, so for each school district there's essentially a club director identified, and then there's a club director specific to our teen center.

And all of our club families have the contact information for those individuals.

So we also have a vice president of support services who's a master's level social worker.

And she really keeps her finger on the pulse of those families that are struggling to meet their basic needs during out of club time.

So we know if they have needs related to food, clothing, utilities, things like that.

And if there's anything that we can do to help, they have kind of a direct pipeline to them.

- So there's a lot of guardian angels working there at the Boys and Girls Club at Topeka.

- [Jennifer] Yes, I would say so.

- That's fantastic.

I hope you all keep up with good work.

- Thank you.

- And I love that the youth are being empowered there and kind of taking it to the next level.

It's time for another short break.

When we get back, we'll learn about another invaluable resource in our community.

Stay with us.

You're watching Working Capital.

(upbeat electronic music) Welcome back to Working Capital.

In 1954, a small group of local families were seeking to improve the lives of their children with intellectual disabilities.

They came together to create TARC and over the last 68 years, the organization has grown by leaps and bounds.

Joining us today is Eileen Doran, Executive Director of TARC Inc.

Thank you for joining us today, Eileen.

- Thank you for having me.

- So give us a little history about TARC.

We know it started in the fifties, but give us some of that beginning history and how it shaped what you do today?

- Well, the fascinating thing to me really is, and I think this goes back to if you really wanna get something done, you gotta get the women involved.

So it really were the moms, I mean, it was the moms who came together and then they dragged their husbands along with them, I think because they really felt isolated.

Their children worked in the schools with their friends children, and so they just started to get together regularly sort of as a support group.

And then said, we can do a lot more.

So we started out with donated space, eventually built the building that we're still in today on Randolph Avenue.

But that group of founding families, we still have one founding family, husband and wife who remain here in the community.

So that's really a testament, I think to, and they have stayed involved with TARC through all this time in history.

- So when they first started out, the curriculums, the way they were teaching and trying to empower their children to be able to have lives in our community, did they come up with their own curriculum or was there anything they were basing this off of?

- Well, they hired a teacher.

There was a classroom that was created at TARC with the children.

And they had their own personal library that one of the fathers carried around in literally in a suitcase.

It was like the traveling library of books.

At the time, most of them had the title of teaching children with mental retardation.

I mean that was the library that they had and what they had to base their curriculum on.

But that classroom really still in some respects exist today.

We transformed that space into what we call the room of endless possibilities now.

So the services we provide to children at TARC has really morphed.

So, where we had the classroom-based services when they were little children, today we serve every baby between the age of birth and three who's been identified as having a developmental delay or is at high risk for a developmental delay.

And so all those babies, more than 800 of them a year are served by TARC, but they're served in their home base settings.

So that space is really used, going back to how we got started, for support groups, for those parents who might wanna come together, they may have children with similar disabilities, whether it's a hearing impairment, visual impairment, down syndrome, who come together in that space, share, have some time to have their children play with one another and receive the support of staff as well.

- Before TARC was started here in Topeka, was there anything nationally, was there anything else going on pioneering this kind of work or was TARC really on the forefront of it?

- Well, TARC was on the forefront in terms of timing, but TARC was affiliated with a national organization and in almost every state there was an ARC.

So whether, when I lived in Pennsylvania, I worked when I was in college at PARC, which was the Pennsylvania association, right?

So when I moved here, I found out that we had a TARC and I thought, oh, it must be the same kind of work.

And the same was true when I lived in Indiana.

So in almost every state and the nature of the work of ARC continues today in terms of being an advocacy organization on the national level.

And then these affiliate organizations really have in each local community been at the helm of getting those services started.

So in almost every state it was the ARC that started services in the state for individuals with developmental disabilities.

- So are all these ARCs now kind of connected in the curriculums and all kind of sharing information and sharing experiences?

- It's more about sharing information and advocacy efforts in terms of trends.

In our work with the early intervention program in what had been called the Tiny K Program always and still people refer to it as the Tiny K Program.

That curriculum is really based on a best practices nationally in terms of what is the best way to work with families, engage parents with their children, and what kind of interventions really are most effective in supporting those children so that as they are developing and leaving our services, that the need for ongoing intervention and support might be greatly reduced.

With our adults, we have a curriculum but we don't have a dependence on any national organization.

What we've done at TARC in terms of our adult services programs, really, again, it came from those founding families.

So they started TARC when their kiddos were little, they went off to the public schools, but they came back when they graduated from school.

And the parents were like, well now what?

There's no services for them as adults.

And so, we had the Miller Building that was our children's services space, and then they created another building.

They built another building and that became our production facility, and that was the first TARC Industry's Employment Services, which now is over on 42nd Street, 'cause we've grown so much over the years.

- Wow.

Okay.

Well it's time for another short break.

When we return, we'll learn about the wonderland of experiences TARC provides.

We'll be right back.

You're watching Working Capital.

(upbeat electronic music) Welcome back to Working Capital.

Okay, Eileen, so you just tell us how it's not just about the children and the babies.

I mean, you go through full adulthood now.

So just tell me a little bit about the services that you have for all the different age groups?

- Right, so between the ages of 3 and about 18, the service that we still provide at TARC is case management services, targeted case management services for those families, helping them to link with other services they might need in the community, whether it's home healthcare, whether it's after school support services, assistance with navigating the special education services that their children might be receiving in school.

But then we take 'em back on as adults in terms of, we provide a day habilitation program at TARC called Avenues where folks really come every day or as many days a week as they choose to participate in activities both on site but largely in the community as well.

And just like other agencies, we really encourage giving back to the community on the part of the people who are participating in our services.

So they deliver Meals on Wheels, they volunteered at the zoo, they used to clean windows at the zoo on a weekly basis.

So it's really about helping them learn enough about what's out there in the community, that there's opportunities.

- Connected with the community.

- Exactly.

- Speaking of that, career services.

So a lot of these adults are able to go out and work, used to be they were shunned, but tell us how you work with careers and placing them.

'Cause I think you're the largest employment placement in the city or state for intellectual disabilities?

- We are, in Shawnee County.

Yes, we are the largest employment services provider and we have a whole gamut of services.

So we try to offer the full array of opportunities.

We have many individuals who choose to continue to come to work at our work center.

They may have been working there since they were 30 years old and now they're 65 years old and they aren't quite ready to retire yet.

And they enjoy, just like many of us enjoy coming to a familiar environment and in terms of where they're working.

But then we also have individuals who want to work in the community, and our job is really to assist them in finding the right placement for them and then providing the ongoing job coaching and support that they might need to be successful in that community job.

And then we have individuals who are working in what we call enclaves.

So they might work with a team of four other individuals who are in services with one job coach out at a site.

So we have an enclave at Hill's Science Diet, for example, working with the dogs and the cats and cleaning the dog bowls and working on keeping the space clean.

We have services, we have a number of individuals who are providing services out at the 190th.

- Okay.

- At Forbes.

So we're exposing the people who come to us to a really broad spectrum of what is out there in the community in terms of where opportunities might be.

- [Jay] Well you do so much help in the community.

How can the community help TARC, whether it's through buying stuff that's made at TARC Industries or you have some other fundraisers coming up?

I know there's a huge one right now that's kind of a good yearly one.

So tell us a little bit about how you approach the community?

- Well we've been so fortunate, really since the inception, TARC has had tremendous support, not just from individuals who've received services, but from businesses, the county provides so much support to TARC as well.

And Winter Wonderland, which is going on right now, is a way that we have been collaborating with the county parks and rec for years.

So this is our 25th anniversary year.

It is a big year for us and it is our largest community fundraising event of the year.

We try not to have event after event after event, but we are reliant on the income that we do receive from Winter Wonderland, so we encourage people to go out.

It's a feel good opportunity and it is one of the greatest opportunities that we have for volunteers because it's a nightly event.

It goes on for six weeks.

We really rely on the volunteers in the community to come man the gates and keep the traffic flowing through and pass out the razzle dazzle glasses.

- Is that kind of a first touchpoint for a lot of your volunteers and then maybe they come and help other in other areas?

- It actually is.

And we've acquired a couple of board members through Winter Wonderland because they got involved volunteering at Winter Wonderland and they got to know more and more about what we do as an organization.

We have opportunities of course, for volunteers and we have benefited from volunteers over the years, particularly in our day services programs in terms of opportunities.

If somebody says, I would really love to teach a cooking class, or we had somebody who came in years ago who wanted to teach knitting to a group of folks who wanted to learn to knit.

So there are lots of opportunities for volunteering at TARC.

- That's fantastic.

I hope some of you out there will volunteer, also check out Winter Wonderland and it is a donation, so if you can double or triple that donation, it's for a great cause.

Well, that's a wrap for tonight's show.

I'd like to thank Jennifer LeClair from the Boys and Girls Club of Topeka, along with Eileen Doran from TARC, Inc. for joining us on Working Capital.

If you know of an interesting business or management technique, we want to hear from you.

So give us a call, drop us an email, or send us a letter.

We look forward to hearing from you.

See you next time and thanks for watching.

It's all about business and you've been watching Working Capital.

(upbeat electronic music) - [Narrator] Additional funding is provided by The Friends of KTWU.