The Long Beach Community College District (LBCCD) announced a new ground-breaking program with Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach (BGCLB) for Long Beach City College student parents to have the option to enroll their school-aged children in free after-school programming.

The pilot program is free to all LBCC students and provides after-school care for children ages 6 to 18. Operational hours of the after-school services will run between 2 p.m.– 8 p.m., Mondays through Fridays, and will be located on-site at LBCC’s Liberal Arts Campus, and the John C. & Alice Wallace Boys & Girls Club of Long Beach located one block from LBCC’s Pacific Coast Campus.

“Long Beach City College continues to break the barriers that sometimes challenge our students from achieving their educational goals,” said LBCCD Superintendent-President Dr. Mike Muñoz. “I reflect on my own personal experience as a single student parent working to get my degree and make a better life for myself and my daughter. I know firsthand the struggle to find affordable and dependable after-school care so I could attend evening classes or study groups as a community college student. This new service is simply a gamechanger for our student parents.”

Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach will supervise site operations and activities, but the new program will also hire current LBCC students through the Federal Work-Study program to help the children with their homework and lead enrichment activities, while providing valuable work experience that will help them in their career.

“This is going to be a synergistic and beneficial relationship between the BGCLB and LBCC that will open new doors for our students,” said LBCCD Board of Trustees President Herlinda Chico. “This is one of the many ways that LBCC has been a trailblazer in providing student support. We continue to make it a priority to ask our students about the challenges they face and we listen. From our Office of Basic Needs to our Safe Parking Pilot Program – this new program once again provides services with the hope that any student who wants to succeed can succeed at LBCC.”

Opened in 1939, Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach have provided after-school and summer programs for the city’s underrepresented children and youth from ages 6-18. Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach offer more than 20 youth development activities in the Five Core program areas of Character & Leadership; Education & Career Development; Health & Life Skills; the Arts; and Sports, Fitness & Recreation. The Clubs have served more than 300,000 youth in the most distressed neighborhoods of Long Beach.

“We’re excited to add the LBCC Clubhouse to the long list of areas that we serve in the City of Long Beach,” said Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach Chief Executive Officer Don Rodriguez. “We’re looking to help our youth reach their full potential while providing a valuable service for their parents as they better their lives and their children’s lives by completing their education.”

Nearly 40 children were enrolled during the pilot program. Long Beach City College announced that the afterschool childcare service with Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach is moving out of the pilot program phase and will now be offered to all current LBCC students.

Approximately 1,000 current LBCC students are parents with school-aged children, and more than 100 students indicated in a recent survey that they would use the service once it becomes available. According to a current LBCC student, “I struggle to balance my job and school with my childcare responsibilities. My kids are already in after school care at school, but it only lasts until 5. I can’t attend any late classes because I don’t have childcare, and when I do enroll in late classes, I end up missing class and receiving bad grades because of my lack of consistent childcare.” 

Additional funding for this new service has been generously provided by the Long Beach Unified School District.

Photo caption (left to right):

Kelly Y. Reynolds, Vice President, Pacific Region, Boys & Girls Clubs of America; Don Rodriguez, Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach Chief Executive Officer; Suaya Montoya, LBCC student parent; Dr. Mike Muñoz, Long Beach Community College District Superintendent-President; Herlinda Chico, LBCCD Board of Trustees President; Vivian Malauulu, LBCCD Board of Trustees Vice President; Dr. Tracy Carmichael, Long Beach City College Chief Innovation Officer; Yvonne Gutierrez-Sandoval, LBCC Dean of Enrollment Services; and Minh Luu, Director of Development & Partnerships, Boys & Girls Club of Long Beach.