East Boston: Homework Help at the Salesian Boys & Girls Club

By Br. Bob Metell, SDB

(East Boston, MA – November 29) – Don Bosco said, “The Oratory is a home that educates for life.” One of the key components of Salesian Boys & Girls Clubs of America is the education of the young through various games and sports. By doing this, youngsters learn the skills of the game, fair play, and good sportsmanship.

Here in East Boston, as in all of the other clubs, education is a top priority. The club provides dedicated staff members to serve in the homework/tutoring room every afternoon from the time the club opens at 1:30 p.m. EST until dinner time at 5:00 p.m. EST. Two dedicated Boston police officers from the Community Outreach Bureau provide life skills for a boys' group and a girls' group. Two staff members offer cooking/baking classes in the kitchen. The club also offers daily arts and crafts, a dance club, yoga, and weekly drumming instruction.

The Boys and Girls Club movement (originally Boys’ Clubs of America) was the inspiration and founding of a group of women in Hartford, CT, during the Civil War to give street “thugs” a “positive place to come.” Much like Don Bosco in Turin, Italy, during the same time, they wanted to reach out to the street youth, who fled the farms of New England and New York to find work in the inner cities. Once they arrived unable to find work and with no money, they began to roam the streets and get into trouble. Some who were old enough (at age 16, they could enlist in the military) joined the Army, which was desperate for new soldiers. When the women ran out of space in their homes to care for these youth, they moved into the state capitol building.