Boys Girls Clubs

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley received a $25,000 grant Monday from the Helping Kids Achieve program. The grant will help finance the Twilight Education program, which assists immigrant families in Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and nearby areas. The Twilight Education program includes infant care, preschool education, tutoring for school-age children and literacy and English classes for parents. Families involved in the program also have access to dental care and immunizations and can receive referrals for free and low-cost health services.

Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley parents can now register their children in the Boys & Girls Clubs’ summer programs. The clubs, 16582 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley and 2309 Delaware St., Huntington Beach, will have Summer Break Day Camps from June 23 to August 29. The camp is open to school age children from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Activities include arts and crafts, cooking, sports and field trips. Registration is $85 a week or $25 a day. There is also a $15 membership fee. The clubs are also offering sports clubs.

Lauren Vane A 2-acre triangle of property adjacent to Westmont School will not be considered as the future home of the Boys & Girls Club. The Ocean View School District board of trustees decided at the April 15 board meeting against establishing a district advisory committee to recommend use of the property. The decision brings an end to a heated battle between the club and Westmont neighbors who were actively against the project from the beginning.

Tariq Malik HUNTINGTON BEACH -- It rained pennies from heaven, or at least from the generosity of others, for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley at their latest fund-raiser. The child-oriented organization, which serves both Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley, received a surprise at its 21st annual Benefit Dinner and Show last month when a city resident signed over a door prize to the club worth more than $8,000. Mike Haynes of Mercury Entertainment won the cash prize in a raffle and immediately signed it back over to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley raised about $410,000 at their 30th annual benefit, “Power of Dreams,” on Oct. 24 at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa. Funds raised benefit the club’s scholarship recipients and go toward programming for the club’s 7,600 members. The organization has five branches in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. Attendees sampled several varietals of wine, participated in silent and live auctions, watched a video on the club and were treated to a 1980s revue by the ClubHouse Theatre’s advanced youth theatrical group.

“Why was that funny?” a baffled child asked his fellow actors. Parents at Tuesday’s tech rehearsal for their kids’ new play, “Groovy!,” couldn’t help but laugh when their kids, who spend their days trolling YouTube, cracked scripted jokes about dated cultural phenomena like Lawrence Welk. In “Groovy!,” flower children attempt to put on a free concert in an apple orchard, but are beset by “square” adults who don’t understand their vision.

“It really is a dream — and it is going to happen,” said Tanya Hoxsie, the chief executive of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley. The club is soon to become the first in the state to put a club facility on a college campus; its groundbreaking ceremony was Friday at Golden West College. Luminaries from Ed Arnold of KOCE to local mayors, a police chief and city council members attended the groundbreaking. “For kids who grow up here, college will just become a normal way of life, not something you see at a distance,” Hoxsie said.

The Family Resource Center of Huntington Beach will bring together several community partners to help families in need this Thanksgiving by providing all that they need for a special holiday dinner. Along with the Family Resource Center, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley and Huntington Beach Surf City Rotary and Fountain Valley Kiwanis Club will all pitch in to make boxes full of Thanksgiving treats and food staples for 75 families at 5 p.m. Tuesday at 2309 Delaware St, Huntington Beach.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley member Annie Adams, 14, went to Atlanta recently to participate in the National Club Tech Digital Arts Festivals by Microsoft. Microsoft and Boys & Girls Clubs of America provided participants with a trip filled with hands-on experiences in the art and technology worlds. They took part in interactive workshops at the Art Institute of Atlanta and global public relations firm MS&L. Participants also visited CNN and the Georgia Aquarium behind-the-scenes for views of what it takes to keep the destinations going.

It's your chance to see "Hello, Dolly!" performed by the players of The Academy of Performing Arts in Huntington Beach. The musical will show at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays between March 15 and 24 at the Huntington Beach Union High School District Auditorium and Bell Tower, 1905 Main St., Huntington Beach. "Hello, Dolly!" is the story of matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi at the turn of the century as she tries to manipulate a match of her own. Tickets are $22 for adults, and $16 for seniors 65 and older and students.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley plans to open a new location in Huntington Beach's low-income Oak View neighborhood, the organization announced Tuesday. The after-school program, which will run until 5 p.m. on weekdays during the school year, is slated to begin Oct. 1 at the Oak View Family Resource Center at 17261 Oak Lane. The club expects to serve between 200 and 300 children the first year, according to the release. Spokeswoman Tanya Hoxsie said the club approached the community center after other children's programs moved out due to lack of funds.

Huntington Beach will soon have the first Boys & Girls Club in the state on a college campus. The Huntington Valley Boys & Girls Club held a Construction Celebration on June 10 on a child-development preschool at Golden West College. The Boys & Girls Club already held its ground breaking ceremony on the project in April, but it took longer than expected to actually dig into the ground, said Tanya Hoxsie, the chief executive of the Huntington Valley Boys & Girls Club. The new facility will replace the existing child development center on a 3-acre portion of Golden West College at 15744 Goldenwest St. The facility is the first of three phases of the organization's $7-million Building Dreams campaign, which will eventually bring a gymnasium and two-story Boys & Girls Club to the campus.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley member Annie Adams, 14, went to Atlanta recently to participate in the National Club Tech Digital Arts Festivals by Microsoft. Microsoft and Boys & Girls Clubs of America provided participants with a trip filled with hands-on experiences in the art and technology worlds. They took part in interactive workshops at the Art Institute of Atlanta and global public relations firm MS&L. Participants also visited CNN and the Georgia Aquarium behind-the-scenes for views of what it takes to keep the destinations going.

With a renewed resolution to work and train hard, 13-year-old Shannon Lynch said she felt inspired after a surprise visit from two members of the 2008 U.S. Olympic women?s water polo team. ?I?m like, oh my God, this is great ? I can see people who succeed in their dreams,? Shannon said. The teen, who likes to play volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball, has Olympic-sized dreams and was excited to meet two women who had accomplished what she hopes to do at the Huntington Valley Boys & Girls Club.

The Boys & Girls Club of Huntington Valley made its goal of raising $4,000 in two weeks to win a coveted spot on a philanthropic website. The club participated in Global Giving’s U.S. Open Access Challenge to gain a permanent spot on Global Giving’s website, which matches donors looking for a cause with nonprofit projects. “It was exciting that people stepped up,” said Tanya Hoxsie, chief executive of the Huntington Valley Boys & Girls Club. The club’s new permanent position on Global Giving’s website will help it meet its ultimate goal of making Golden West College the first college in the state to have its own Boys & Girls Club on campus.

The race is on for the Boys & Girls Club of Huntington Valley to raise $4,000 in two weeks to win a coveted spot on a philanthropic website, which would help it meet its ultimate goal of making Golden West College the first college in the state to have its own Boys & Girls Club on campus. The club is participating in Global Giving’s U.S. Open Access Challenge to raise money from 50 individual donors before Tuesday. Huntington Valley started the challenge June 18 and have raised $435 so far, according to Tanya Hoxsie, chief executive of the Huntington Valley Boys & Girls Club.

Less than a month after Huntington Beach’s children’s libraries were defrauded by mysterious counterfeiters, they’ve been blessed by the kindness of strangers. Organizers of the Taste of Huntington Beach, a fundraiser that benefits the children’s wing of Huntington Beach Central Library and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley, discovered in May that about 200 counterfeit tickets had been sold for the event. The counterfeit sales, which police are still investigating, deprived the library of more than $11,000.

Downtown will welcome the opening of its first — and long-awaited — boutique hotel Tuesday with the debut of the 157-room Shorebreak Hotel at 500 Pacific Coast Hwy. in the new Strand development. Part of the Joie de Vivre collection of hotels, the pet-friendly Shorebreak features ocean, city and courtyard views, modern furnishings, an on-site fitness center and yoga studio equipped with Wii Fit, surf-inspired art and flat-screen HDTVs. Each guest room is a blend of cheeky and refined, with furnishings such as tropical-print beanbag recliners, iPod docks, Reed Diffusers, “Surfer” magazine photography and pristine white linens.