(South Sioux City, NE – July 22, 2021) Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota’s Vice President Deb Nebosis was among five new members enshrined into the Greater Midwest Area Council Hall of Fame for their achievements. This was the first group honored for the new Greater Midwest Area Council.
The Boys & Girls Clubs Area Council Hall of Fame honors those rare individuals whose high achievements have made a mark in their local Club and have impacted the Greater Midwest Area Council (GMAC). These five individuals being honored have shaped and inspired local Clubs in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. Hall of Fame honorees have achieved the distinction of being true champions for children and have provided innumerable accomplishments and lasting impact.
Deb Nebosis has provided more than 22 years of service to Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota in the field of resource development. Nebosis has served as a staff liaison for the Minnesota State Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs since its inception in 2002. She has also served in various capacities for the Great Plains Area Council (GPAC) and hosted GPAC council meetings.
When Nebosis started at the Club in 1999, she was responsible for raising about $200,000 to support operations. Since then, she has worked tirelessly and passionately to grow the organization to support the needs of our community’s youth. Today, our organization raises $2 million annually with a development department comprised of only two staff, including herself.
As Vice President of Development, Nebosis has led the organization through five successful capital campaigns. She successfully raised $3.7 million to build the 30,000 square foot Southside Club in 2001 with an additional $1.3 million toward the Southside endowment fund. In 2008, she raised another $3.5 million to build a 20,000 square-foot Eastside Club to replace the original facility. In 2012, she raised $1.1 million to add a commercial kitchen, café and teen center to the Roosevelt Club. In 2015, she raised an additional $2.1 million to add a gymnasium, healthy lifestyles center and visual arts studio to the Roosevelt Club. This was a capital campaign created out of absolute need after a fire burned down the gymnasium we had shared with the neighboring school. The Club’s new gym was built within 17 months of the fire – debt-free thanks to Deb’s successful resource development efforts!
When COVID hit, Nebosis rolled up her sleeves and partnered with United Way of Central Minnesota, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and other county, state and federal agencies to ensure that Boys & Girls Club would receive all possible funding to continue these much needed programs for youth and their families, as well as critical workers, during COVID. Deb’s tireless efforts resulted in our organization’s financial stability during the nation’s darkest year in a century.
Whenever program funding needs arise, Nebosis is always ready to tackle them head on. In 2019, we launched a new, locally developed program called CareerSTART that required the Club raise an additional $250,000 annually. Nebosis was able to successfully secure funding for this project, over and above her annual fundraising goals, because she knows this program will positively transform the lives of youth, and even 22 years into her career at the Club, she is still passionately committed to helping youth build their great futures.
Her innovative touch has reinvented how Boys & Girls Club provides programming to youth. In the fall of 2000, she noticed that kids were staying at the Club from school dismissal until 8 p.m. without eating, and behavior was increasingly becoming more problematic. She launched a peanut butter and jelly sandwich meal program and quickly started looking for a way to fund a more substantial program. She launched partnerships with Second Harvest Heartland Food Bank and Gold’n Plump Poultry, and our Clubs used the staff kitchens to start cooking and serving daily meals. Over time, our meal program grew, as our capital campaigns afforded commercial kitchens. We partnered with the USDA’s CACFP food program during the school year and SFSP during the summer. We serve a daily snack right after school and a meal, using the nutrition guidelines set forth by the USDA at 5 p.m. Monday – Friday. In 2019, we served more than 112,000 meals, 213,000 snacks and 325,000 milks! When COVID hit our community in March 2020, her first thought was the hunger needs our kids will have during the closure. So, she launched a Grab & Go meal program that launched March 30, 2020, serving 5,000 meals weekly. This program will continue until COVID restrictions are lifted, and our youth can resume mealtimes in a congregate setting.
Throughout her tenure at the Club, Nebosis has been committed to funding the future of the Boys & Girls Club with a strong planned giving program. She started a committee comprised of financial advisors who worked to develop the organization’s planned giving policies. The committee also started a campaign to increase general awareness of Boys & Girls Club’s planned giving options. She started the Club’s Legacy Circle of Planned Giving to recognize donors who have made a planned gift to the organization. In 2018, she secured a $5 million gift to launch the Great Futures Endowment Campaign! This gift came with a 2:1 matching challenge, which could be daunting for anyone else. Could we raise an additional $2.5 million to receive the entire gift? We are proud to say that this campaign was successfully completed in the fall of 2019.
Nebosis is truly most deserving of this award. She has given her heart and soul to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota as a resource development professional for the past 22 years, and she continues to innovate to provide the resources we need to ensure great futures for every youth who walks through our doors.
For more information about the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota or the Greater Midwest Area Council, please visit our website: www.bgcmn.org.