One year after it opened a location in Rhinelander, the Boys and Girls Club of the Northwoods is looking to hire a slate of staff before it opens it again this year.
It needs a club director, four youth development professionals and two program assistants.
“We learned a lot in our first year and you can see, by serving 317 different kids, there’s obviously a need for our program in our community,” said Angel Zimmerman, the organization’s CEO.
But finding the labor to meet that need is proving difficult.
And it’s not just staffing for the after-school program.
The bus service that transports students to the program’s location at Pelican Elementary is also short-staffed.
“We’ve checked any other transit that we are aware of, but it’s just not possible right now,” Zimmerman says. “We’re open to serving all kids in the community, it’s just we won’t be able to transport them.”
This means the Boys and Girls Club of the Northwoods Rhinelander location will only serve Pelican Elementary students this fall, unless parents can arrange their own transportation.
Zimmerman says the club hopes to start serving students by the beginning of October.
If it can’t hire enough employees by then, it’ll cap the number of students who can be involved.