Indiana Boys & Girls Clubs Thrive with $30M Lilly Endowment Grant

Youth services organizations across Indiana are thriving thanks to a generous grant from Lilly Endowment. The organization donated $30 million to the Boys & Girls Club of America in 2022, specifically to enhance and expand services of clubs in the state.

Just over two years later, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Noblesville is seeing the impact. Executive Director Becky Terry said, “We want kids to come here and have fun, but we want a safe environment with caring mentors and we wanna provide life-enhancing experiences. We are here for every child. We want to be the place where every kid every family feels like they belong.”

The club received $453,000 over the course of two years, which was used in three ways: enhancing programming, building projects, and supporting long-term financial stability.

Since 2022, membership has gone up 21 percent and average daily participation has gone up 33 percent. The club currently serves 376 kids a day. Terry added, “We stay in a 1:20 ratio because of our growth we’ve had to add our youth development professionals to our team.”

Aaliyah Jones, a sixth grader, loves coming to the Boys & Girls Club after school. She said, “It’s a place I can be with my friends instead of being with a babysitter or something. I can like just meet people that aren’t in my school, people that I have things in common with and I’m not with them 24/7 but I can meet a lot of people and have a bigger friend group than I can reach in school.”

The grant has had a big impact across the state as a whole. More than 40 new clubs have opened across Indiana, serving an additional 11,000 young people.