Our History
Boys and Girls Club of Canada
Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada is part of a global affiliation of Boys and Girls Clubs. The first established Boys Clubs originated in the eastern United States in the late 1860s. At the same time, a similar movement was beginning in Great Britain. The first recognized use of the name "Boys' Club" was in New Haven, Connecticut and was used to identify a reading room and coffee shop.
Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada's proud heritage of service to young Canadians has its roots in Saint John, New Brunswick, where in 1900 a group of concerned local citizens set up a "public playground movement" to provide a safe place to play for children-particularly boys-from disadvantaged circumstances, with no place to go after school but the streets. The "Every Day Club", originally established as a winter location for the Playground Association, later became known as the East End Boys' Club. The East End Boys Club of Saint John resulted from this initiative, becoming the first "Boys Club" in Canada. The Club's original mission was "to give youth a chance to have some recreation and to see beyond the confines of their immediate situation".
Since those days, "Boys Clubs" have become "Boys and Girls" Clubs and have spread across the country, as a result of grassroots initiatives similar to the one in Saint John. The national organization was established in 1929 by Vernon McAdam, our first National Executive Director, and in 1948 received its official charter as a national, non-profit organization from parliament as the Boys' Clubs of Canada. In 1974 , the name changed to Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada to reflect the fact that services were also accessible to a growing number of young girls who had been participating in club programs for many years.
Boys and Girls Club of Truro and Colchester
On April 8, 1964, an influential group of Truro citizens gathered in the courtroom of th Civic Building and the Truro Police Boys Club was born; the brainchild of the Town Police Sergeant Bruce Conway. He was elected its first president and agreed to head a program in his spare time, which would provide recreational diversion for the young boys in the hope of reducing juvenile delinquency and vandalism in the town.
By 1967 the membership had grown to 200 and within ten years it stood at 428. It should be mentioned that there was no doubt the original need of the boys and girls aged 7 to 18 years had been met and police statistics showed Truro with a very low rate of delinquency, compared to other places where no Boys and Girls Clubs existed. But it went further than that and soon attracted members from all walks of life, irrespective of race, background or family status.
In October 1972, the name of the club was changed from "Truro Police Boys Club" to "Truro Boys Clubs". In 1974, a resolutin was presented to the National Board of Boys Club of Canada, to have the name changed to "boys and Girls Club of Canada". This was passed and where girls had been in local club programs, they were encouraged to change the name of indidvidual clubs to conform with the National name. Truro was one such club. A notice of motion in October 1974 was unamiously approved at the annual meeting in 1975 and the new name of the "Truro Boys and Girls Club" was adopted. In June 2005, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada unveiled a new national logo, core values and mission statement. The Truro Boys and Girls Club adopted the new logo and also took the opportunity to incorporate a new name, becoming the "Boys and Girls Club of Truro and Colchester". Colchester was added to the Club name to recognize that many of our members come from beyond town limits in the County of Colchester.