VBGCQ worked closely with NY Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris, NY Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, and New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán to start a COVID-19 testing site at the Club’s Astoria Clubhouse and Teen Center to provide much needed testing options to the Western Queens community.
The testing sites opened just before Christmas with the Teen Center location staying open through the end of January.
More information about the pop-up testing can be found below!
Variety worked with tons of members of our community to gather over 1,600 toys that were distributed this December! Over 1,000 gifts were given out to the kids served at all six of the Club’s locations with the remainder of the gifts distributed to VBGCQ’s partner schools in Queens.
Thank you to so many folks for supporting this campaign! Special thanks to the following:
JetBlue System Operations Center
9 Hugs
Vlad Paunic
Alex Paunic CEO and co-founder of PreCog Security, Inc.
Tamarra Jenkin
Amy Shelver, founder of BriefMapp
Soman Chainani
PreCog Security, Inc.
Executive Digital
Sasha Jovicic- CEO of Executive Digital
Sam Busic
Fernando Quintero
Vernon Tower
Astoria Heights Playground Tennis Community
Variety was selected, along with 27 other Queens organizations, to receive funding from the Queens District Attorney Katz’s office through the Youth Development and Crime Prevention Program! The funds will support our college and career readiness programming at the Club’s Teen Center in Astoria. The College and Career Readiness Program includes college and career counseling, SAT and ACT prep, and college visits! All of the Teen Center’s programs are completely free and open to the community. Teens and families can learn more about the program and register here.
Read more about the Queens DA Youth Development and Crime Prevention Program and the other awardees here!
On September 18th, VBCGQ held our annual Back to School Festival at the Astoria Clubhouse! Over 600 community members stopped by the Festival to get free school supplies, eat yummy food, dunk Costa in the dunk tank, and more!
Food was available from Chip City, Ample Hills Creamery, and San Antonio’s Wood Fired Pizza and back to school supplies were donated by Ashley Dean/Apartment 3R, NY State Senators Gianaris and Ramos, PreCog Security, Executive Digital, and Staples Store 841. Tons of local shops and organizations tabled at the event - including the The Noguchi Museum, BioBus, and the Astoria Bookshop! The Club also did a free raffle with prizes including JetBlue flight vouchers, a goodie bag from Astoria Bookshop, Amazon gift cards, free yoga classes, and more.
VBGCQ also partnered with NY State of Health to do a COVID-19 Vaccine Pop Up in our gym. Every teen who got their first show received a FREE one day pass to Governor’s Ball! This partnership was so successful that NY State of Health is going to come back to the Club in October and do another pop up!
A special thank you TD Bank, Chip City, Heroes Basketball, and NYC Health and Hospitals Elmhurst Hospital for sponsoring the event! We can’t wait to see you all next year!!
This summer, New York Power Authority ran a STEM program for the summer campers at the Astoria Clubhouse.
Almost 40 middle school aged campers completed a six week program, culminating in a career day with folks from New York Power Authority, Con Edison, and 174 Power Global shared about their experiences working in renewable energy. At the career day, 174 Power Global announced a $15,000 donation to the Club to support Variety’s STEM programs!
Read more about the summer camp STEM program and see pictures here!
On a sunny Wednesday afternoon at Silver Lake Golf Course on Staten Island, over 100 golfers played 18 holes to raise money for the Club.
John Jastremski, a member of the Club’s Young Professionals Committee and host of the Ringer’s sports podcast New York, New York, organized the second annual event. Groups of golfers competed against each other before participating in a raffle with fun prizes including a Knicks jersey signed by Julius Randle, gift certificates to restaurants, and Mets and Yankees tickets.
Read more about the invitational and see pictures here!
On Sunday June 13th, Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens and Elmjack Little League hosted out first annual Jr. Home Run Derby at Elmjack fields! Over 50 kids came out to see how many balls they could hit out of the park. The winners of the two divisions will be invited to the Regional Championship with the chance of making it to the Home Run Derby World Series!
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards came out to hit a few balls as well as make the exciting announcement that the Queens Borough President’s Office is allocating $5 million dollars to the redevelopment of Variety’s Astoria Clubhouse. These funds will go towards the construction of a new Boys & Girls Club that will allow Variety to go from serving 4,000 to 15,000 kids every year!
Read more about the event and the funding announcement here!
Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens is excited to announce that we were awarded a $50,000 Love Takes Action grant by the New York Life Foundation, thanks to a designation by Jaime-Faye Bean! Bean is the executive director of Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District and co-founder of Queens Together and she secured the grant for the youth center after being named one of 35 individuals across the nation as “Love Takes Action” awardees.
Read more here!
Over 100 volunteers from JetBlue’s Finance Team and the JetBlue Foundation came to Variety Boys & Girls Club on Friday, September 20th to beautify the Club! They painted the lobby and the main hallway downstairs and bright shade of blue and added new plants to the living wall in the Club’s lobby.
JetBlue’s CFO Steve Priest and the President of the JetBlue Foundation Ursula Hurley joined in the fun as well.
Thank you so much, JetBlue for brightening up our space just in time for the start of the school year! Check out the gallery below for before, during, and after pictures.
Over a dozen teenagers came to the newly opened Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens Teen Center last Friday for a Pizza and Paint Night! Following along with a video online, each teen painted a sunset landscape while chowing down on pizza. We have so many talented artists in our midst!
Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens was excited to soft-launch the Teen Center this summer and we can’t wait to officially open our doors at the start of the school year! Visit bgcqueens.org/teencenter for more information and to learn how to sign up for the program!
On Friday June 14th, VBGCQ’s young artists showed off their creations in the first Art Gallery Show. Paintings, drawings, and pastel art were features on the walls of the black box studio while African inspired drums and other sculptures were displayed on tables.
Families and friends sipped on juice and ate hors d’ouervres prepared by the Cooking Club while watching live spoken word art by local artists, drawing demonstrations by Art Club members, and viewing the artwork on display.
During the 2018-2019 school year, VBGCQ focused its afterschool arts program on multicultural visual arts inspired by artists and artistic genres from around the world
During the 2018-2019 school year VBGCQ partnered with multiple organizations to run STEM programming for over 500 youth across four after school sites!
Samsung’s DIY STEM program is running at the VBGCQ - Main Club location for the budding scientists and engineers in the middle school program.
BioBus is teaching the Tool Time program at all four locations educating youth about different scientific tools and taking “field trips” to the neighborhoods around each location to perform experiments!
Hofstra University’s Wise Guys and Gals program offers design thinking and engineering challenges to the middle schoolers at the VBGCQ - Main Club including building a functioning prosthesis and creating a website.
Thank you to our partners and our amazing STEM Specialists for helping our kids develop their science skills and learn to love STEM!
Many thanks to everyone who came out to root for their favorite team at our annual 3v3 Corporate Challenge! The event raised more than $8,500 for Club programs that serve over 4,000 children each year.
This year, over 10 teams competed for the championship with Heroes pulling through as the tournament winner and NY Mets as the 2nd runner-up! Thanks to Lime, Super Soccer Stars, Red Rabbit, Edward Jones, Chip NYC & NY Life for playing their all and assembling your best talent! The event included free cookies from ChipNYC, scooter and bike demos from Lime, and a silent auction with prizes generously donated by JetBlue and Aloft Hotels.
Special thanks to former Jets Fullback, Tony Richardson for playing in the tournament and to our event sponsors NY Mets Foundation, Pharmapacks, Super Soccer Stars, Lime and Phenom. The 3v3 was presented by the Young Professionals Council, a group of change makers dedicated to building bright futures for children in Queens.
Halloween at the Club was full of sweets and spooky adventure! With the artistic flair of volunteers from Ophelia Theatre Group, we created an unforgettable haunted house as part of our Halloween celebration. Take a look at our collection of photos to see creative costumes and all of our Halloween fun!
The Club kicked off the school year with our 1st Annual Back to School Boutique! Thanks to Raymour & Flanigan, the Disney Store and Hilton Garden Inn, we transformed the Broccoli Theatre into a boutique featuring new backpacks, pencils, rulers, crayons, notebooks and so much more. With the support of our partners, students and their families were able to pick out supplies and stock up for the year ahead. We wish all of our participants and their families a happy and successful school year!
Thank you to the NY Jets and our favorite #49, Tony Richardson, for hosting a day of football for our summer campers! From running drills to blocking exercises to catching punts, campers got the opportunity to learn directly from a professional and receive his expert tips and instruction. The Boys & Girls Club children had a fun-filled and action-packed afternoon playing on the field, showing off their new skills, snapping photos and getting autographs. Our campers can’t wait to practice their new skills at the Club!
