In October 2023, Ramya Tammali began her journey as a volunteer with BGC East Scarborough for the Licensed Childcare Team primarily working with toddlers and preschoolers.

Having moved to Canada from India in 2018, she found herself grappling with the increasing expenses of housing, food, and education, especially with two children to care for. The Club seemed like the perfect opportunity to gain valuable experience while navigating the complexities of life in a new country.

Adapting to life in Canada presented its own set of challenges, particularly due to the language barrier. With limited understanding of the English language when she arrived, she dedicated herself to improve her language skills to better communicate and progress in this country.

Despite the many opportunities Canada offers, securing employment has been a significant hurdle. The Club has remained a source of support and encouragement through practical assistance and insights into integrating into Canadian society.

Her introduction to the Club came on the recommendation of another...

As leaders in our communities, it's crucial to tackle the barriers posed by the rising cost of housing in East Scarborough. With home prices escalating, our club has had to explore avenues to enhance accessibility to programs and learning spaces. We aim to ensure that children and families don't face the dilemma of choosing between housing and after-school activities.

Meet Christian, our Sports Program Coordinator and passionate advocate for affordable sports programs. Joining BGC East Scarborough nearly 12 years ago, Christian brought with him a wealth of experience in sports and basketball. His journey with basketball began in his youth, becoming not just a passion but a guiding force in his life. Growing up in a single-parent household, basketball provided him with affordable and impactful programming, shaping his trajectory.

Christian emphasizes the importance of spaces offering affordable programming, alleviating burdens for families like his own.

He shared, "When I think about limited access growing up as a child, and watching my mom raise me on her...

Today our Club, and organizations across Canada celebrated #PinkShirtDay. On this day, we encourage everyone to wear pink to raise awareness around anti-bullying.

While some of our staff wore pink as their affirmative action, our Licensed Childcare team took things a step further and carved out some time to get creative and explore the ways in which bullying can look, and how our kids can do their part to prevent it from happening.

Our children created powerful signs, one of which read "Together we stand against bullying" and another had band-aids on a heart, representing the power of healing one another. They decorated their classroom doors and had open conversations about their experiences. Through their brainstorming activity, they developed numerous concepts including letting a teacher know and calling helplines if you need someone to talk to.

Through these small activities, we hope that they create awareness to our children about why we need to talk about bullying openly in order to prevent it from happening. In our community, we hold different experiences,...

This past Monday, the Federal election was held and the Liberal Party declared their win. Prior to the voting day, ESBGC partnered with SCAN (Scarborough Civic Action Network) to host an event called, YOUTH VOTES. We wanted to give the youth the opportunity to pick the brains of some of the electoral candidates for the Scarborough Village Riding. After meeting with a few youth and having only one candidate from the Green Party come out to the event, it raised the question “Why?” – why are youth not interested in coming out to events related to politics, and why does it seem as though the voice of the youth is not important to our electoral system?

SCAN is an organization that focuses on networking agencies, community groups, and residents to improve our communities through civic engagement. They are working to uncover how they can get more youth involved and doing work such as creating youth councils, in order to raise awareness on youth issues. Through this form of action, they believe, the youth, can have a better relationship with politics and make a difference.

Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is pick yourself off the ground when you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom. But once you do, it’s the first step to building a much brighter future for yourself. Maria, a member of ESBGC for 4 years now, started attending the Raise the Grade Program. Raise the Grade supports young people by tutoring and mentoring them through their studies. Maria’s success stemmed from her commitment to wanting something greater for herself.

When Maria was in grade 7, she was failing. She had no interest in her school work and began to convince herself that this was it for her. One of her biggest concerns was the cost of tutoring, as it can be extremely pricey and unattainable for young people. With the world on her shoulders, Maria leaned to ESBGC for guidance.

“The Club has given me the opportunity to obtain resources such as tutoring that I couldn’t afford or obtain access to. They always provide the necessary resources and space I need to succeed.” – she tells us.

Over time, the staff grew closer to Maria, and they constantly shared...

Wouldn’t it be great to have the perfect survival guide while trekking through high school? A guide that you could open up and it is filled with amazing tips and tricks that can help you get through any situation? High school is said to be some of the best and worst days of our life. There are a lot of things we go through that we keep to ourselves because we believe that no one will understand.

Sameera, one of our after school program staff at the Club came to us with a sacred book that could save the lives, and fulfill positive experiences for all young people going through high school. A Girls Guide to Surviving High School, written by various young women as part of the program S.I.S.T.A. (Sisters Inspiring Sisters to Achieve) at the school we once knew as David and Mary Thompson. It is a collection of true stories related to their experiences in high school. The stories offer useful tips at the end of each one to support young women who may be experiencing the same issues.

The program was a space where young women could come together, discuss the issues they were...

In our communities, it is very easy to feel marginalized and undervalued in systemic spaces. When certain experiences and emotions are hard to discuss, young people have few choices. Sometimes these decisions can have a major impact on life as a whole.

Many may have heard the quote “Ball is Life” and laugh without truly understanding the love that is attached to it and why…

Here at the Club, there is not a day that goes by that a basketball doesn’t SWOSH the net as it hits our new NBA backboards. Looking deeper into the passion, at any age, one can admire the dedication that comes with something that relieves stress, a place where you can make friends who turn into family, and learn a new skill. We host Jr. NBA programs on the weekends, and Ball Runs for the young adults and teens in the week. The space is always filled and utilized well.

Turkey, Turkey, and more Turkey. The ultimate Thanksgiving staple. Due to a wide eye and excitement, we usually fill our plates a little too much, contributing to the 50% of food that gets thrown into landfill every year. Thankfully, we have Second Harvest, an organization that helps to minimize the deterioration of our environment.

Second Harvest is a food recovery agency that focuses on environmental protection and food access to communities. They connect with the food supply chain to collect surplus food. These partners include restaurants, wholesalers, and local farms to redistribute the food to non-profit organizations like ESBGC. The food is delivered through the freedom truck to the various non-profit and charity organizations they support.

If you have been keeping up with our blogs lately, you may recall hearing about the Be Boundless Ghana Trip where we said we would be sending 11 youth from our community to travel into the most memorable journey of their life thus far; a cultural exchange to Ghana during the 400 th year anniversary; known as the Year of the Return. Well the youth are back, and we have an update!

Travelling halfway across the world allowed our BE BOUNDLESS team to expand their horizons and view life through a different perspective. The trip was full of experiences where our youth explored their history, culture and identity. There were daily tours into the grass root communities of the country, which evoked discussions on the impact of slavery, the legacy of colonialism, the impact of the media, and the strength and resilience of our ancestors. They examined their personal bias and prejudices, and the role that they play in shaping a better future.

Beginning in the Volta region, the group participated in traditional enstoolment ceremonies at the Nkonya Tayi and Ho Ziavi villages....

Understanding the growth of technology is essential to our future. The NAVACUP Foundation, founded by Ganesh Navaratnarajah, hosted their annual golf tournament on June 15th this year. The day was filled with various teams filing in early in the morning to get out and play golf. The day carried on with lunch, raffles, and a silent auction. Followed by multiple motivational guest speakers including, Owen Charters, the CEO of Boy’s and Girl’s Club Canada.

Their goal is to raise funds to purchase laptops for youth in developing communities. In 2009, the foundation worked solely with the East Scarborough Boys and Girls club for the first 5 years, and expanded organically to provide their work to the Albion and Peel Boys and Girls Club.

To ensure the laptops are going to the youth who need it most, the NAVACUP team has worked with the students of the IMANI program at U of T to act as mentors to provide guidance for youth placed in troubling situations. To be fair, the youth must meet specific criteria before applying to win one of the laptops (i.e. have never entered the...

Tis the Season to Give!

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Kwanza, or Hanukkah at this time of year, the one thing that holds us all together is the gift of giving back. This year we are proud to share and give thanks to all the people that contributed to donations for our community.

In a nutshell, take a look at how we helped!

• 107 Families received food hampers
• 53 Families received a turkey
• 41 Families received a grocery gift cards all worth up to $1580
• 236 Families will received toys and gifts to give to their children (totalling up to 527 Children)

Initiatives such as this one can help teach us a valuable lesson; Coming together and working as a team creates positive change in our community. As we live our day to day lives, it makes it very easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of our wants, forgetting that the true spirit of the holiday has always been about giving. Sometimes the people that we help are closer than we realize; in our schools, in our community centres, and even the places we...