More than 150 volunteers from The Home Depot® joined Poway community members on Thursday, April 14 to construct a new playground in just one day for the children of Sulpizio Family Branch Boys & Girls Club. Made possible by a partnership between The Home Depot and KaBOOM!, the playground will give the children of Sulpizio Family Branch Boys & Girls Club a safe place to play, where previously no playground existed. The playground is located at 12988 Bowron Road in Poway.

"This playground will expand our facilities, giving more opportunities for outside play and for the children of the Sulpizio Family Branch to stretch, run, swing, and play. We also hope to use some of the playground equipment to supplement our organized fitness programming, hence helping children stay fit furthering our efforts to fight childhood obesity," said Rob Damwijk, Sulpizio Family Branch Boys & Girls Club. "We are so thankful to The Home Depot and KaBOOM! for bringing this playground to our children."

"Having built more than 250 playgrounds nationwide with our Home Depot associates, we know what a positive impact community play areas have on our children," said Chuck Elias, Home Depot regional vice president. "With more than 4,500 of The Home Depot associates living and working in the San Diego area, we are very proud to be able to bring this playground to the children of Sulpizio Family Branch Boys & Girls Club and help build it with them."

Recent rains have caused much damage throughout San Diego County and unfortunately the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego was not spared from the abnormally rainy winter. Most severely hit was our W.J. Branch located in Logan Heights. A combination of heavy rain and poor grading at the 64-year-old facility caused severe flooding that completely destroyed the hardwood floor in the gymnasium and caused additional damage to the adjoining locker room. As a result, over 1,100 children cannot use the gym during the height of our basketball season.

The damage to the gym floor alone will cost the Boys & Girls Club at least $100,000 and does not include the cost of fixing flood damage to the adjacent locker rooms. Because the damage was caused by a flood, replacement of the floor is not covered by our insurance. The club has not funds set aside for such a disaster. Responding to this urgent need, the Boys & Girls Club has developed an emergency flood repair fund to ensure that the gymnasium is available for use as soon as possible.

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National Boys & Girls Club Week, April 3-9, is the time each year when some 3,400 communities around the nation, including San Diego, celebrate the important work of their local Boys & Girls Clubs - saving and changing young lives, every day, every week - all year long.

During National Boys & Girls Club Week, each of our Clubs in San Diego celebrates with guest speakers, exhibits, helping in the community, and much more! Both our Poway and 4S Ranch Branches will be celebrating with a family night where they will have a good, old fashion campfire sing-along! Poway will celebrate on April 5th and 4S Ranch on April 6th. The Clairemont Branch will have a "Clairemont Stars Shine" day on Thursday where the kids will come dressed as their favorite celebrities and enter the Club on the red carpet, followed by a talent show on Friday. The Oakes Branch in Logan Heights and the Linda Vista Branch will host block parties for the community with carnivals outside the Clubs! All events provide great photo opportunities.

For more information about Boys & Girls Club Week activities or Club membership, please contact Christine Wenzel at 619.298.3520. Or email: cwenzel@sdyouth

On March 23rd, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego members participated in a PLAYATHON™ at the Clairemont Branch Boys & Girls Club to help the victims of the recent Tsunami.

A PLAYATHON™ is a brand new way for kids to raise funds for causes they care about. Kids get pledges just like grown-ups do for "walk-a-thons." This PLAYATHON™ benefited the UNICEF for the Tsunami Relief & Recovery via Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Cartoon Network and Hasbro support the PLAYATHON™ program. Hasbro generously sent all the toys for the event to the Club. They sent cases full of Lite Brites, Tinkertoys, Battleship, Twister, Jengas, Play Doh Kits, and Koosh Balls! This was a great opportunity for our community's children to help people in need and have fun with their friends at the same time!

A new branch has recently been added to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego ’s family thanks to Newland Communities! The community of 4S Ranch in the Rancho Bernardo area is the new home for 8,000 square-foot Boys &Girls Club facility. On November 10,2004, the official dedication of the new branch took place, thanking all those who made the project possible. The Club opened to new members on August 26,2004.

Mike Rust of Newland Communities and Tom Ralphs of 4S Ranch were acknowledged for making the dream of a Boys & Girls Club a reality. Newland Communities built the facilities at their expense for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego. Architect Richard Yen, contractor Taylor Frager, James Stewart and Mitch Mitchell of Hewlett Packard, Sheila Rust of Olhausen Billiards,and Ron Kohl of Phone Systems Plus were also thanked for all their hard work and support of this project.

Hewlett Packard,a major partner in this endeavor,is sponsoring the HP Digital Academy. HP is donating over $100,000 in equipment over the course of the year for technology programs. Time Warner, another partner, is providing internet and cable access at the site as well. They will also being donating a flat screen television to the branch.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego is proud to announce that we are the recipient of two grants for nutritional education and snack programs. These generous grants from The Vitamin Case Settlement Fund and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, totaling over $215,000 per year, will enable the club to serve over 1200 snacks per day at twelve different sites for 193 days per year. That’s 231,600 snacks!

A partnership between The Home Depot, KaBOOM!, San Diego Padres and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego gave the members of the William J.Oakes Branch a safer place to play. On November 18th more than 200 volunteers came out to build a brand new playground for Club members.

KaBOOM! is a non-profit organization that has facilitated the construction of nearly 700 playgrounds and skateparks, and renovated 1300 playgrounds and two athletic fields across the nation in communities that need it most. KaBOOM! partners with companies like The Home Depot to build these playgrounds in minimal time.The Home Depot provided fnancial support, materials and over 100 volunteers to build the William J.Oakes playground.

The playground was designed by Club members who attended a “Design Day ” in September where they were able to draw out plans of their ideal playground. From these designs a playground was crafted to include all favorite playground characteristics, and was built in just one day!

Randy Jones, former San Diego Padre and Cy Young Award winner came to the board cutting ceremony on the build day to represent the San Diego Padres,who donated $10,000 towards the playground project. Thanks to all of our community sponsors the build day was a success!

This project added to the efforts of an on going Capital Campaign geared toward improving all four of the Metro San Diego clubhouses including the William J. Oakes Branch in Logan Heights.

Ron Renner recently became a member of our Inland Region, Board of Directors but has been making an impact for quite some time. Ron began chairing the golf tournament in Ramona in 2000 and has done so ever since.In his first year he was able to sell out the tournament, something that had not been done before.

The tournament started in 1991. Before Ron provided leadership, the most that it ever netted was $28,000. This year Ron was able to take the tournament to a new level, netting over $50,000.

Ron is responsible for soliciting major sponsors for the event. In addition he has recruited local vendors to provide food and beverages on the course throughout the day. The tee prizes for the golfers have also been upgraded.

The Board of Directors honored him this year giving him the “Spark Plug Award ”. Ron is the only person awarded this honor who was not a board member at the time of reception.

Ron has been in the grocery business in Ramona for some time now. He works for Daniels Market as their Director of Marketing and Sales. Dan Vengler, former Board Chair of the Boys & Girls Club of Ramona, recruited Ron to get involved with the Ramona Golf Tournament. Dan Vengler is the owner of Daniel’s Markets and has always been a generous supporter of the Boys & Girls Clubs.

Ron resides in El Cajon with wife Linda. They have two grown children, a son and a daughter. They also have five grandchildren including twins.

We look forward to many more years of successful golf tournaments with Ron as our leader. Thank you,Ron!