9:15am | 
With several locations throughout Long Beach, the Boys & Girls Club will hold two car washes today to raise money for vital programs that keep at-risk kids off the streets, and active after school. Not only will your ride look brand new, you could even win a new car!
Between 12:00-3:00pm today, the washes will be held in two locations: one near the Boys & Girls Club main office at Long Beach Blvd. and Cameron (parking lot in the back) and one at the corner of Atlantic and Del Amo (front parking lot). A car wash ticket is $20 but enters you into a raffle to win a brand new 2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid.
The winning ticket will be drawn at the annual Boys & Girls Club of Long Beach gala on May 1.
The money goes to fund increasingly important programs provided by the Boys & Girls Club. With a recent increase in gang violence, it becomes more vital each day to involve the children of Long Beach in after-school activities that allow them to grow without the pressures of an illegal lifestyle.
At the John C. Wallace Boys & Girls Club near Martin Luther King Jr. Park, club directors provide anti-gang class sessions for at-risk kids between the ages of 11 and 13, because that is about the age that gangs begin to recruit them. By discussing the risks and alternatives to gang life at that age, many are able to recognize the dangers and choose a different path.
Students from the Sociology department at Cal State Dominguez Hills have been making weekly trips to the club to lead groups of the youngsters in such discussions. Even at that young age, many have had close experiences with the gang lifestyle, threats of violence, and even death.
But it’s those same kids that say they aspire to achieve something greater with their lives, and the Boys & Girls Club helps them with that as well.
Last week, directors took a group of promising teenaged students to visit the campus of UCLA and speak with administrators and students about university life. The goal, directors say, was to plant the seeds of a college career in their minds at an early age. The next day, they visited the California Science Center near the USC campus in Los Angeles. For a young adult who has perhaps spent their entire life in Long Beach, the experience of seeing a new world can be life-altering.
So head out to one of the car wash sites today to keep these programs alive, or visit this page for more information about purchasing raffle tickets. Good luck!
