Boys and Girls Club

My name’s Tommy Garner. I’m a Boys and Girls Club alum. I would like to take a few minutes and share my story. Growing up in the Boys and Girls Club, back in the early seventies, my father was a New Newport Fireman, and he was involved in an accident. And he was permanently, totally disabled with three kids, and I was at the age of nine.

I had an older brother and a younger sister. The finances in our household became very tight. We were in a situation that the Boys and Girls Club made a big difference in my life. At that point, we, my brother and I, were sitting on the front porch of our house. And a lady by the name of Ms. Highsmith pulled up in front of our house and said, “are you going to the Boys and Girls Club Day camp today?” And we asked my mother, and my mother told her we didn’t have the money, we couldn’t attend. And Ms. Highsmith said, “no, come on, get in the car. You’re going.”

Long story short, we showed up at Williams Field, which is in the Mariners Museum. Once we get there, there’s about 150 or 200 kids and this is my memory from 50 years later, but it seemed like more than that. But, we were exposed to a gentleman by the name of Mr. Tom, his real name is Tom Eliason. He called us all together, we were sitting in the middle of the woods, on log benches, and he had us sing songs. And then you broke out of this, the environment of the sitting on the logs, and we went to either arts and crafts, or you could play flag football or you could go fishing or you could play Mush Ball. Mush Ball was one of my favorite events and I’m fortunate enough, my wife bought a mush ball for me a couple years ago at a Boys and Girls Club auction.

A little fishing story, everybody always wants to hear a fishing story. We had a designated fishing area. We never caught fish. Well, a buddy of mine, we came up with this great idea, why don’t we go fishing somewhere else? That was not really what you’re supposed to do. So we came back to camp an hour and a half later. We had a lot of fish and we get up. Mr. Tom has everyone sing. Take me out to the baseball game, take me out to the field… Anyway, we didn’t sing one verse, we sang three verses of it. We get to the end of it, he says, “I wanna let everybody know I have sprayed invisible paint around this whole property. And if you go outside of an area you’re not supposed to be in, you’re gonna have paint on the bottom of your shoe.” So guess who the only one was that lifted their shoe up to find the paint was – me.

And when I did that, Mr. Tom looked at me and afterwards he came over. After everybody went to whatever activity, he said, “did you fish somewhere else?” And I said, “yes sir.” And he said, “well, I’m gonna discipline you.” So for the rest of the week, I had to help a gentleman by the name of Max, who handed out the milk and the juice and did the trash and the cleanup. So, you know, going to the day camp. You, you think it’s all fun. You think it’s basketball and you think it’s flag football, but I learned a lot about morals and ethics. Learned about discipline. I learned about life skills. You know, it didn’t matter who you were, what color you were, what financial ability you had or whatever, ’cause we were all the same. It was the greatest experience. I’m 63 now and I still have memories of all of it.

So as life goes on, I made so many friends and relationships at the Boys and Girls Club. It helped me with my career, because once I got into the heating and air industry, they all supported me by calling me. I guess it was in early nineties, I had a gentleman confront me about doing a donation to an event called Steak and Burger. And I was like, “wow. Yes sir. Boys and Girls Club.”

And the gentleman was Mickey Marcella. And I made a donation, went to the Steak and Burger, and I was like, ‘wow, look at this!” And it was a great organization. Many years later, Steve Cast was in charge of it.  So the next year they came back, I gave another donation. The next year they came back and they wanted me to be on the Board of Directors. And it was one of the highlights of my life to be asked to be on the Board of Directors, because the people you’re associated with and surrounded by are the professionals and the people that in the community I looked up to.

So once I got on, the next thing I know, my whole family supported me. My family has bought into the Boys and Girls Club. They love it. They see the mission. They see what we can do to help kids and give ’em an opportunity. Not only my family, my friends, all my coworkers. We have the privilege of doing our Christmas party. We try to do it every year for about, anywhere from 80 to a hundred kids. And if you could just see the faces, you see what it’s about.

So my story with the Boys and Girls Club. I think it gave me what I needed to be where I am and I want to thank the Boys and Girls Club for that. I hope that you will also see this vision and support the Boys and Girls Club.