Boys & Girls Club of BG gets new computer center

Published 5:50 am Thursday, July 31, 2025

By David Horowitz

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Boys and Girls Club of Bowling Green leaders, representatives of AT&T and city officials stand under raining confetti as they cut a ribbon for the new AT&T Connected Learning Center (CLC) in the Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The center, which is the first AT&T CLC in Kentucky, will provide free access to digital resources, like high-speed AT&T Fiber internet, Wi-Fi and Dell computers, as well as free educational resources and mentoring. GRACE MCDOWELL / BOWLING GREEN DAILY NEWS

The Boys and Girls Club of Bowling Green has opened a new center featuring 19 Dell desktops, a printer, and high-speed internet, courtesy of AT&T.

The Bowling Green club anticipates its site’s new room will serve more than the 200 children in its summer camp, according to club CEO Liz Bernard Clark. The club hopes to open up the room so families could pre-register for afterhours classes during some evenings – adding that AT&T has built out programs for adult digital literacy.

AT&T announced the fiber-powered center Wednesday at the club for the latter’s 75th anniversary, also donating 75 laptops and backpacks of school supplies. Attendees included dozens of club children; club team members; Kentucky Lt. Governor Jacqueline Coleman along with other officials at the local, state and federal levels; the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce; community leaders; and AT&T leadership.

The centers are part of AT&T’s $5 billion commitment to help 25 million connect and stay connected to high-speed internet by 2030, according to the company.

“All of this that we’re doing today is bringing digital literacy and bridging the digital divide,” AT&T Kentucky President Carlos E. Sanchez said.

The addition is the first statewide of what AT&T calls a Connected Learning Center, of which the telecommunications giant intends to open at least 100 nationwide. The computers, like others, can also access theachievery.com, a safe online learning website launched by AT&T and Warner Brothers that provides thousands of lesson plans across subject areas from science to math for kindergarten through 12th grade for free, Sanchez added.

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AT&T has a “very rigorous” criteria for a nonprofit organization to receive one of these centers, Sanchez said.

Led by trained youth development professionals, the nonprofit club offers programming to bring a fun, safe environment that fosters learning, growth and opportunity to kids that they might not otherwise have, according to Clark.

The club years ago had a computer lab that was difficult to keep functional; then came a mobile cart with Chromebooks and tablets, but those too proved difficult to keep working, Bernard Clark said. Prior to the new center, the club may have had around five laptops and five tablets – not nearly enough for 200 kids —which makes the center a game-changer, Clark said.

The high-speed internet they’re getting with AT&T is also superior to the wifi they’ve been using, she added.

“It’s really going to be just a new day for us, truly – because kids do need that access every day after school (for) homework,” Clark said. “They don’t always get to bring home their school technology, so this is where they have that access.”

The lab will stay open during club hours, and kids will have a set schedule of rotation so that they all have equal opportunity to use the space, she said.

Ka’Myah Fugate, a 16-year-old Bowling Green High School student who’s been at the club for six years, said her home has a lack of internet access, making the school and the club the places she can connect to the internet. She sees the center making things better.

“You can’t always do everything on the phone like a tablet at home because you may not have the best wifi or fast internet, but here … it can help it go way faster,” she said.

Fugate aims to use the center technology to improve at math, science, history and other subjects, as well as learn how to drive a car and change a tire, she said.

“Some kids go through difficult things at home, and this little (…) room can help the kids learn better faster, figure out what they want to do in life,” she said.

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