As part of our commitment to supporting youth...
through their transitions to adulthood, we provide a comprehensive suite of academic programs designed to prepare our teens to achieve their goals and become successful, productive young adults. Through robust financial literacy education, college and career exploration services, paid internship placements, and postsecondary scholarship opportunities, our Clubs offer teen members practical, hands-on services that empower them to envision, plan for, and pursue successful futures.

Our innovative Work-Based Learning & Education (WBLE) program model engages teens in meaningful, age-appropriate, curriculum-based workforce readiness programs that foster their future success while ensuring that they receive well-rounded Club experiences. Work-based learning experiences are structured, educational job-readiness programs and placements within our Clubhouses that create safe spaces to learn about the world of work while our youth develop their employability skills through firsthand application. These high-yield practical opportunities for teens – both within our Clubs and in other workplaces through placements with community partners – help them build critical life and workforce readiness skills.

We have two distinct WBLE cohorts/tracks at BGCMS.

• 8th and 9th-grade WBLE participants are engaged in an 18-week evidence-based curriculum series that spans our Fall 1, Fall 2, and Winter program sessions and blends college prep and career exploration with financial and digital literacy programs to help prepare these younger teens for first jobs and provide pathways to higher education and/or technical training. Youth who complete this curriculum receive a stipend in recognition of their accomplishment and to help them build financial responsibility.

• WBLE participants in grades 10, 11, and 12 are also engaged in an 18-week evidence-based curriculum series that spans our Fall 1, Fall 2, and Winter program sessions and builds upon the 8th and 9th grade curriculum – continuing to blend college prep and career exploration with financial literacy but with additional age-appropriate topics that grow with our teens as they reach employment age and prepare for young adulthood. During the Winter session, specifically, youth explore various opportunities for in-Club internship placements, prepare their resumes, and apply for available positions. Teens who complete this curriculum receive a $500 stipend and are then eligible to complete an 8-week internship during the Spring 1 session. Internship placements can take place in the following departments across the organization, including Membership, Childcare, Nutrition, Athletics, Administration, and more! In these work-based learning internship experiences, they support and learn directly from Club staff whom they know and trust. As a capstone experience during the Spring 2 session, youth reflect on their internship experiences, update their resumes to reflect the new skills they have honed, and prepare to present about these opportunities at our end-of-the-school-year Internship Showcase. Teens who complete internships and the capstone experience receive an additional stipend.



• High school seniors who have graduated from the WBLE program are eligible to be placed in a combination of “externships” (single or multi-day job-shadowing opportunities) and traditional internships with corporate and community partners across the Metro South region. 

Providing our youth with equitable employment opportunities is a key component of breaking generational cycles of poverty for our kids and our community. Our innovative WBLE program helps members develop the hard and soft skills they need to enter the workforce, poised to achieve their career goals and become successful young adults.