PURPOSE

Lee County and its children need Boys & Girls Clubs to succeed as never before. 

The perilous state of our youth can be clearly determined through several fundamental statistics: 

• Lee County has nearly 25,000 children under the age of 18 living in poverty.
• Children represent about 23% of the total population but about 32% of people in poverty. 
• 25,700 children and youth in Lee County are without supervision between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. (20% of all school-age children).
• In an era where an education is required for access to employment and economic self-sufficiency, 1 in 5 kids won’t graduate high school. 
• Nearly two-thirds of fourth graders lack reading proficiency and more than half lack math proficiency. 
• Similarly, some 2 out of 3 eighth graders lack reading proficiency and the foundational skills needed to succeed in higher-order math courses in high school. 
• Large achievement gaps persist between white and African-American, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native students. 
• Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. In 2012, about a third of children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 were overweight or obese.