Boys & Girls Club of Lanier unveils new tech room

So glad you're here. We want to get out to our Maria Guzman, who is at a newly renovated center in Gainesville, which is giving local students more ways to learn and grow with STEM activities, mentorship and creative programs. Hey, Maria. Hey, Tyler. This is all happening right here at the Boys and Girls Club of Lanier. Now, this building that we're going to be talking about one room in particular, we got a major update. Now, this building had been operating since 2010, and so it needed some love, some much more update. And they have flipped a library room into a room of technology. So that's what we're going to be talking about. And I'm going to go ahead and flip my camera to introduce you guys to Stephen. He is one of the leaders here at the Boys and Girls Club. So, Stephen, thank you for being here and chatting with me today. First question, talk to me about this awesome tech room. I saw smart boards and a lot of new laptops as well. Yes, we're extremely excited to have the opportunity to add that tech room to our Boys and Girls Club's Center of Hope through Panda Cares Foundation. That tech lab is going to offer access to smart boards, laptops, Chromebooks that give our kids another advantage about learning. And learning, which is really important to us, is one of our pillars, which is academic success. And the tech room is just giving them access to be their own room that they can go in and they can get on the laptops, Chromebooks, look up things. As well as we're going to use it for mentoring as well. Mentoring kids, making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do. But we're extremely excited about it because our kids and families don't have access to smart technology, unfortunately. And this is where we fill in the gap. That's something I really want to go ahead and own into. you know, we talked about how it's more than just an updated room. It's really closing a gap. So as you talk with parents, with kids, are they saying, I don't have access to laptops, I don't have access to do my homework online if they need to? Yes, absolutely. And I guess this really started back in 2020 during a pandemic where kids had to stay at home order and they didn't have smart devices or access to smart devices, laptops, computers, or even cell phones. And so at that time, we decided to say, let's open up our clubs and give children access. And now to have a room that's dedicated on providing access to all of technology is even greater. And I saw you guys have fully renovated the room from the painting to the furniture. How much money did you guys save, especially since this was given to you by the Panda Cares Foundation? Yes, we saved about $60,000 of operational funding because that grant through Panda Cares Foundation afforded us the opportunity to offset some costs as well as build a great Center of Hope Technology Lab. Now this club is right next to a school, so how many students are you guys serving each day in a year and also the schools around it? Oh yeah, absolutely. This club in particular serves over 100 kids per day in the after-school program as well as in the summer camp program. overall though we serve over a little over 1100 kids at all 23 of our locations and this is our flagship location and that's why i was glad to give it some love um and and do some modernization to some of the buildings some of the rooms in the in this location awesome well thank you so much again guys this is all happening right here at the boys and girls club of lanier students here celebrating the updated room it officially launched last week, Tyler. Maria Guzman, so glad that they are doing this and we'll check in with you a little bit later on this afternoon.