How Mike Lansing transformed the Boys and Girls Club of LA Harbor into a national success story
Mike Lansing chooses his words with precision, describing his life’s work from his small office while the sounds of children playing lift from below.
Across the street the Boys and Girls Club opens its San Pedro doors. It is 3 p.m. and children from ages 5 to 18 are coming here — for homework help, college preparatory work, art and science programs, musical instruction, recreation opportunities, games and dinner.
“A myriad of different things are available every day,” Lansing says, his eyes bright and clear. He pauses, his hands held together. He is a deeply earnest man. “The key is every day. That is the defining factor — 2,300 youth served every day. Which is a lot different than Little League or other nonprofits that are open seasonally.”
Lansing is the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of the Los Angeles Harbor. The harbor chapter serves 15 locations including the San Pedro, Wilmington, and Port of Los Angeles Boys and Girls Clubs. Eleven sites are available on the campuses of Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The Daniels Field Recreation area, across the street from the San Pedro Club, is also a site.
The annual membership fee for a child is $25. Lansing estimates that for every 100 children served daily, the annual operating budget is raised $90,000 to $100,000.
“Traditionally our clubs serve children who need us most,” Lansing says. “The reality is at this time in our country’s history we have the largest percentage of kids living in poverty since Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. The national poverty level is 22 percent. In the harbor area it is 39 percent. We really want to make sure we are reaching out to those who need us the most. [These kids] have the least amount of support in their home and family life.”
Each club under Lansing’s direction has been strategically realigned into three separate centers: High School, Middle School, and Elementary. The LA Harbor clubs are different than other Boys and Girls Clubs in this respect; each center caters to the needs and desires of its respective age group.
Within the three centers the LA Harbor Boys and Girls Club provides two unique programs: The Art Academy and College Bound.
As art programs continue to be cut from the public education system, Lansing believes the opportunities art provides shouldn’t be cut from a child’s life simply because their family can’t afford extracurricular art programs.
“The Arts Academy has two parts. Any child can be involved Monday through Friday,” Lansing says. Children receive daily instruction in fine arts, music, dance, audio production, film production, animation, and game design. Professional instruction and all instruments, equipment, and materials are provided at no additional cost to the children.
“Then we said, ‘This program is for beginner to intermediate levels, but what about the advanced level kids?’” Lansing says. “So on Saturdays we have programs at a higher level. Kids with the skill set and the determination to become better artists can meet on Saturdays. Twice a year we have shows…our underground theater continues to grow. It is an additional cost, but we feel it is really worth it.”
The second program that separates LA Harbor Clubs from the rest of the country is College Bound.
“We wanted to prioritize teens, because most programs work with youth. We provide comprehensive programming, academic assistance, and sports,” Lansing says.
Since College Bound began in 2002, the students participating in the Boys and Girls Club high school graduation rate has skyrocketed, from below 50 percent to 98 percent. The State graduation rate is 78 percent.
“Participants have their own case manager,” Lansing says. “We want them to not only be accepted into college but to succeed. The first year there were 30 kids total in the program – one went to college. But we just built the program, we kept added more staff.”
The San Pedro High School Center hums with music, billiards click, the soft clap of a group of teenagers typing homework assignments rounds the air. Two girls pour over a tile taken from the ceiling, painting a wide swath of blue over a dabble of green. Above, a rendition of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” swirls its perfect colors. In the sound room a young man is learning to edit music. A 3D printer sits at the ready. In the Lounge, a long brick room with a dark floor, teens stretch on low black benches, telling stories that could be poems, looking hopefully cool. It isn’t your mother’s kitchen. It is hip, even edgy, or better still it is a new word us grown-ups don’t know yet. It is Lansing’s genius: the teenagers want to be here.
Kimberly Caballero is the marketing coordinator for the club’s LA Harbor operations.
“Most of what we do with teens is all Mike [Lansing],” Caballero says. “It is something you rarely find. One of the few programs [of its kind] in LA County.”
“The [teens] just come,” Caballero says, “And they stay until we close.”
“The high school aspect is unique to this club,” Caballero continues. “We help develop high school support in 54 clubs nationwide, from Boston to Hawaii.”
College Bound is perhaps LA Harbor’s biggest success story.
“We help them attain federal funding. They are not only accepted in college, but are able to attend and succeed,” Lansing says.
Speaking of his approximately 230 employees, Lansing says, “They’ve been in the same position as our kids, they are great role models. They show that this can happen with perseverance and hard work.”
Lansing is himself a Boys Club alum.
“I was born and raised in San Pedro, attended Holy Trinity Catholic School, and became involved in sports at San Pedro Boys Club,” Lansing says.
He then went on to San Pedro High School and Cal State University Long Beach where he received a BS in business finance. He was involved in real estate for one year, but decided it was not what he wanted to do. Lansing was then asked to coach and later teach at his former school. He returned to Cal State University, at Dominguez Hills and earned his teaching certificate. He became a middle school math teacher and highly successful coach at Holy Trinity Catholic School. Lansing then served two terms on the public school board.
In 1988, Lansing along with a group of local youth advocates founded the San Pedro Youth Coalition, a volunteer non-profit agency that still thrives today — promoting youth issues and sponsoring youth development programs. Lansing served as the Coalition’s president for seven years, returned as president in 2001, and retired from the program in 2003. He was also the program’s grant writer, a skill that has provided the Boys and Girls Clubs of Los Angeles Harbor with a large percentage of its funding.
“We have a $6.2 million dollar budget,” Lansing says. “We receive $2 million dollars in government funding.
This money is used to help fund after-school activities on the Club’s 11 school sites.
“We secure $2 million through competitive grants,” Lansing says, but adds that the Club also writes a lot of grants to private foundations. Individual donors and corporate donors provide a large percentage of the Club’s funding.
To sustain the Club’s vital programming, Lansing is reaching out to individuals that want to be part of the solution.
“We are kicking off a giving program — not a campaign, because it will go on for eternity. We are asking people to consider our organization in their estate plans…the same thing that universities and hospitals have been very successful in doing,” Lansing says. “We are now in our 77th year, we need to sustain this work.”
This past fall Boys & Girls Clubs of America President Jim Clark presented Lansing with the National Professional Service Award. Lansing, with a team of dedicated and enthusiastic staff, has grown the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles Harbor’s membership from 175 members in 1995 to over 7,500 youth members today. He has grown the facility’s operating budget by over $6 million.
“We are growing our board, our donors. We are building a better relationship with local donors and businesses,” Lansing says. “Traditionally donors were from the local area. In the last six or seven years we’ve made a big reach to the hill, to Palos Verdes…where there is so much generosity…Our biggest growth has been under this generosity. We still have a long way to go – we need to grow those numbers, that army, if you will.”
Lansing emphasizes that the Club’s first priority is to diminish the perception that the children the Club serves cannot attain the goals that they have set. Lansing believes it is his job to eradicate low expectations. Lansing believes in the individual power and possibility of each child.
“We are trying to end the cycle of poverty, trying to end abuse, neglect, homelessness, and hunger,” Lansing says.
“We are open every day…because the children we are serving already have many challenges in their path. They need a helping hand, not a handout. Our staff is our key,” Lansing says.
“Our program serves children everyday,” Lansing says. “The kids that need us most, need us everyday. If you really want to change lives you have to do it on a daily basis, not once a month or once a season.”
For more information on the Boys and Girls Club of the Los Angeles Harbor, see bgclaharbor.org or facebook.com/bgclah, or call 310-833-1322.
