Youth club benched
Boys and Girls Club charter revoked

By Pamela G. Dempsey
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Boys and Girls Club of Navajo Inc., a non-profit organization based in Shiprock, received nearly $60,000 to start a mentoring program in two of its 14 clubs.

However, the mentoring program is one of several that remain on the back burner until the non-profit's money problems are worked out and the clubs re-open.

While the latest goal of the non-profit organization has been to find money to re-open, its problems continue to grow.

Glen Purmuy, senior vice president for service to clubs for Boys and Girls Clubs of America, said a letter was sent on Monday to the non-profit revoking its charter.

"The organization has been closed," Purmuy said. "They were not meeting membership requirements."

The national organization will place a club on a provisional status, initially, before revoking its membership. Purmuy said the Boys and Girls Club of Navajo Inc. has been placed on provisional status three times since 2002. It has the right to appeal, he said.

On Friday, Fran Rowden, the non-profit's executive director, asked the tribe's Inter-Governmental Relations Committee to spot the clubs $1.2 million so the clubs could re-open and "get back on track."

"Basically, we can't use the name Boys and Girls Club," she said of the revocation which she plans to appeal, "but it doesn't stop us from being a non-profit."

Although a temporary memorandum of agreement was signed in December between the non-profit organization and the Expansion Office to release funding for the next six months to open the clubs, the Expansion Office has yet to release any money and the clubs remain closed.

Rowden told the committee that the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the national organization which charters the non-profit, wanted to see support from the Navajo Nation before it released any further funding.

Council Delegate Lawrence Platero, sponsor of the funding legislation, told the committee that the money is for six months.

"I won't be back to ask you for another penny," Platero said.

The Inter-Governmental Relations Committee approved the legislation, which now passes to the Budget and Finance Committee and Ethics and Rules Committee before going before the Navajo Nation Council for a vote.

"We have many families and children negatively affected," said Leonard Teller, a member of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee.

The Diné Expansion Office has said it will file an application for its own Boys and Girls Club charter by the end of the week.

— To contact reporter Pam Dempsey, call (505) 879-1707 or email pamelagdempsey@msn.com