Builder to Help Nail Down Funds to Bring Boys & Girls Clubs to Schools

A $12-million effort to bring six Boys & Girls Clubs to middle school campuses in the Conejo Valley has received a potential $500,000 boost.

Cal Johnston, a Calabasas developer who started the drive last year, said he will match any donation of $1,000 or more made by local small businesses, up to a total of $500,000.

The money will come from his own bank accounts, Johnston said. He hopes other business people in the greater Conejo Valley--from Calabasas to Newbury Park--will follow suit.

“I can’t think of anything more important,” said Johnston, 70, who lives in Thousand Oaks. “We’re talking about protecting our children.”

For Johnston, a national trustee of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, part of the motivation is personal.

He lost both parents when he was 4. He lived at the Masonic Home for Children in Covina until he was 18. The positive, stimulating environment there was similar to the one provided by Boys & Girls Clubs, he said.

“I know it made a huge difference in how my life evolved,” Johnston said. “If we hope to keep our kids from wandering the malls or getting into trouble, they need a place they feel is their own--a place where they belong.”

His pledge will help kick off the nonprofit group’s major development campaign, which officially begins in July, said Bob Gross, director of fund-raising for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Conejo & Las Virgenes.

The group plans to solicit philanthropic support from the area’s larger corporations, including Amgen and Countrywide Home Loans, Gross said. Johnston’s matching gift is intended to give smaller business owners an opportunity to participate.

“We recognize that businesses with fewer than 25 employees don’t have the wherewithal to come in with a $10,000 gift,” Gross said. “I think this initial lead gift is going to trigger some wonderful things.”

A feasibility study completed this year shows there is corporate support for the $12-million project, which calls for two $6-million phases, Gross said.

In January, Thousand Oaks agreed to contribute $1 million toward construction of the four clubhouses proposed for that city, after the youth organization raises $450,000 for each site.

Johnston’s group hopes to build two additional 10,000-square-foot clubhouses on middle school campuses to serve children and teens in Westlake Village, Agoura Hills, Oak Park and Calabasas.

They will be the first Boys & Girls Clubs in the affluent communities.

The idea is to provide youngsters with a place to go during crucial before- and after-school hours, when studies show juvenile crime rates are highest.

Despite a host of after-school programs and sports leagues available to Conejo Valley youth, community leaders say there is a void in supervised activities targeting children too old for day care and too young to be home alone before parents return from work.

And while homework help and other tutoring programs are available at schools, they can cost as much as $200 a month.

A membership in the Boys & Girls Club will cost families $15 to $20 a year.