School Boys & Girls Club is on the grow

By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Kids come in rambunctious. It’s 3 p.m., school’s out, mom or dad can’t pick them up until they get out of work. Where to go?
At Douglas Elementary, they have a place. The school’s Boys and Girls Club, an extension of the Holland one, has in five years grown to hosting an average 120 first- through fifth-graders daily, says local program director Allison Van Zytveld.
“We’re booming,” she says. “We give kids healthy, fun and positive ways to socialize, play, work on projects and vent their energy …”
What’s it cost? Five dollars per family per year. The club has 220 member families.
The Saugatuck-Douglas Rotary Club, working with Saugatuck Public Schools and the Greater Holland Boys and Girls Club, saw a need here and volunteers worked to meet it.
Rotary in 2019 started donating proceeds from its annual Mt. Baldhead Challenge runs towards seeding, then maintaining a new club extension here.
Once it opened post-Covid in 2021, local families could see and experience that value too.
Van Zytveld, 32, oversees a staff of five other trained Youth Development Specialists. “We have our hands full,” she says, “with our growing numbers. But I love it.”
The club runs from 3 to around 6 p.m. on weekdays during the school year, and weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in summer.
Attendance then runs from 70 to 100 children daily, says Van Zytveld, but that may grow too this year as the program adds kindergarteners.
Longer-range plans include starting a Boys and Girls Club at Saugatuck Middle and High School.
“I can see the need for that too. However we can help,” she says.
For more information, visit bgch.com or phone (616) 210-4932.