Collier County Boys and Girls Club benefits from Naples Winter Wine Fest

Getting students to graduate high school on time and providing hot meals are all critical resources the Boys and Girls Club of Collier County provides to 3,000 children every year.

But it could not be done without the help of a key fundraiser, the Naples Winter Wine Festival.

As the festival turns twenty this month, we look at some of the impacts the money has had on kids in the community.

Fridson Janvier is a former Boys and Girl Club member, and now he goes back to talk to the kids that attend today.

“Every time I walk through these doors, I still feel like a little kid,” said Janvier.

Now a sophomore at University of Central Florida, he says he spent every day there for nearly thirteen years.

“I lived with a single father so when it came down to like anybody helping me with homework or just the social experience…like it was just here that I was going to receive that,” said Janvier.

His dad, like many parents of kids that go to the Boys and Girls Club, juggled three different jobs to pay the bills.

That is why the after school care and before school programs are so critical.

“I can’t emphasize enough the safety aspect…We’ve heard from law enforcement that when Boys and Girls Clubs opened, the juvenile crime went down especially over the summer months,” said Megan McCarthy, CEO of Boys and Girls Club in Collier County.

McCarthy says they also help kids with career exploration, and all of that is possible because of the Naples Children and Education Foundation and its Winter Wine Festival.

Thanks to the generous donors at the event, the club can keep costs low, at only 1,900 dollars a year for all their programs. And every student will receive some sort of financial help.