“Not enough people understand what the Clubs have to offer. If people just show up, they’ll realize that they can find the whole world within the doors of each Boys & Girls Club.”
– Jasmine Santos, Yawkey Club of Roxbury Alumna, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston staff
For a youth-serving organization, hiring alumni as a full-time staff is the holy grail of outcomes. On the surface, it affirms the organization’s impact. Digging deeper, it provides a higher level of operational excellence. Who better to serve a young person than someone who has stood in the same exact place as them?
Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston is fortunate to have a tremendous alumni presence among its staff. In fact, nearly 30% of staff are “Club kids.” One such alumni staff member is Jasmine Santos, who attended the Yawkey Club of Roxbury as a teen, became the Club’s Membership Service Manager after graduating from college, and is now the organization’s Corporate and Foundations Engagement Coordinator.
Through her longstanding relationship with Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Jasmine’s story is about mastering the art of giving because of what she has received in life.
“I get a lot of fulfilment out of helping others and bringing joy to other people, or, at least supporting them to alleviate some of the burden that they may be feeling in life,” explained Santos. “It is the relationships that drew me into this organization, and now it is the mission that keeps me here.”
A Summer Job: How it All Started
Jasmine Santos, BGCB alumna and staff member
Jasmine’s first involvement with the Club started at 13 years old when she was looking for a summer job. While many think of Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston as a place for recreation, it is one of the top youth employers in the state, as well as a pipeline to summer internships and full-time career opportunities with employers across all sectors throughout Boston and Chelsea.
“I needed a job and, as a 13-year-old, the Boys & Girls Club was one of the best opportunities,” she remembered. “Once I had gotten a taste of making money at that age, there was no way I could ever spend a summer making friendship bracelets again.”
For Jasmine, the opportunity to join Young Leaders at the Club appealed to her. Young Leaders, the first of a series of steppingstones in the Club’s leadership pipeline, is an employment opportunity targeted to younger teens who are interested in working at the Club as a supervisor and role model for younger members while simultaneously building leadership and professional skills through program workshops.
“When I got there, I felt like an underdog because I had not been involved with the Club at all up to that point,” she explained. “But as I got to know the staff, they introduced me to so many of the cool programs targeted toward teens, including travel opportunities and College Club, and I felt compelled to get more involved.”
Jasmine as a teen member at Yawkey Club of Roxbury
What started out as a job was quickly becoming a huge opportunity to get a jump start on a successful life and career.
“I was laser focused on success in all aspects of life, and the more I learned about what the Club was offering, the more I realized that I needed to take advantage of the opportunities available,” she explained.
It didn’t take long for Jasmine to jump in. The spring of her freshman year of high school, she was traveling around the east coast on a college tour alongside upper classmen at the Club. Later that summer, she was immersed in the Club’s Experiential Travel program, preparing for a 2-week trip to India.
Santos would remain a regular at the Teen Center for the rest of her time in high school, progressing through the rest of the Club’s leadership pipeline while building close relationships with staff members like Jen Medina and Adam Chaprnka.
“I even continued coming regularly after I had been accepted into college,” Santos remembered. “I was locked in at the Club until the very end.” However, Jasmine’s time with BGCB would not end there.
"I wanted to care about my work."
Jasmine attended The New School, located in New York City, majoring in Global Studies.
“I would think a lot about how the world’s economic, political, and social policies impacted different countries and how they were positioned to face modern crises,” she explained. “And I was also particularly interested in how those policies end up impacting local communities in the end.”
Upon graduating in 2021, Jasmine was entering the workforce as most of society was taking initial steps back to some semblance of normalcy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I wanted to stay close to home, and I ended up applying to a lot of places,” she remembered. “Ultimately, I wanted to care about my work while still being able to gain valuable professional skills.”
As she started narrowing her options, the opportunity to work as Membership Director at the Boys & Girls Club she attended, Yawkey Club of Roxbury, emerged as the clear path forward for her.
“The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that there was no way I could take this job and not have fun,” she explained. “And meanwhile, I was bringing all of my ideas and ambition into the role to help create improvements at the Club and find opportunities to make things better.”
Jasmine started working as Roxbury Club’s Membership Director and was immediately grateful for the decision she made.
“As Membership Director, you get invested in the kids that walk past you every day on their way into the Club, and you get invested in their lives and their families and their families’ lives,” she explained. “Then, you can see yourself in the kids, and you can see what makes each of them extraordinary, it is such a treat.”
She found that one of the greatest benefits of working at the Club was the community she had around her.
Jasmine Santos with Yawkey Club of Roxbury staff
Jasmine Santos with colleagues Charice Fuller and Jamall Griffin
“I really value the relationships I was able to make with my colleagues at the Club. I worked with many colleagues who I consider friends and I gained a lot of personal and professional role models as well.”
Her focus in her first year was to figure everything out and take in as much information as possible. Then, she moved to create positive change. In addition to serving as a mentor and role model to countless young people at the Club, Jasmine helped enhance the Clubs operations by providing leadership in a series of key ways:
- Implementing a new membership database while creating helpful resources for parents to accelerate the learning curve around the corresponding new processes.
- Stepping up to guide Club operations through a leadership transition
- Executing a strategic campaign to increase targeted services for members and deliver greater impact
“I could do that.”
The Roxbury Club operates as part of Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, which represents the majority of Boys & Girls Clubs around the city.
As the organization embarks on an ambitious 5-year strategic direction, the administrative office has been growing and an opportunity to join the fundraising team as the Corporate & Foundations Engagement Coordinator caught Jasmine’s attention.
“I had seen fundraising staff on site at the Roxbury Club before,” she remembered. “After seeing them in action a few times, I started to see myself in that type of role. I thought to myself that I could do that.”
Ultimately, it was a curiosity about how an organization like Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston operated at a broader scale that pushed Jasmine to apply for the role.
“My entire view of the organization had been limited to my own Club,” she explained. “I wanted to meet more people in the organization and expand my horizons further. I felt like I had even more to give, and I felt like this role in the downtown office was a great way to do that.”
Jasmine was offered the position and has been a part of BGCB’s Development team for the past 6 months. As she looks back on her personal and career journey with the organization so far, there is one thing that she wishes more people knew.
Jasmine Santos, BGCB alumna and staff member
“Not enough people understand what the Clubs have to offer. If people just show up, they’ll realize that they can find the whole world within the doors of each Boys & Girls Club.”
This realization is what transformed Jasmine’s perspective as a young teenager and is the message she has been sharing with young people, parents, families, and supporters of the organization ever since.
