Rayonier Inc. announced the award of more than $82,000 to area organizations. Recipients of the company's Community Fund grants were recently recognized at a special breakfast hosted by Rayonier.

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Media Release Rayonier Kim Sarton, Public Affairs Associate December 20, 2016 1:00 a.m.

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​If you drop by the Roberts Learning and Achievement Center in Fernandina Beach on a Friday afternoon, be prepared for a beehive of activity from youth ages 6-18.  It starts not long after neighboring Southside Elementary School dismisses for the week, and a line of students marches across the field, through the gate and into the Boys and Girls Clubs of Nassau County-run center. Club staff line up the students, urging those with extra energy to be quiet. Other than the occasional quick outburst from a student, the almost-immediate shushing by a staff member and the periodic admonition from unit director David Bryan to “tie your shoes,” the children are remarkably silent. Their destination is the canteen area, where they are given snacks.

This month, Boys & Girls Clubs of Nassau County Foundation was awarded a perfect, 100%, Four- Star rating by Charity Navigator (CN).  This highly-respected ratings organization publishes annual assessments of some 8,000 non-profits, nation-wide. Only 49 charities in the USA are recognized as “perfect” and the local Boys & Girls organization made that list!  

            CN looks at a number of factors in arriving at their ratings but concentrate on financial accountability, transparency and application of funds raised. Major factors relate to percent of a non-profit’s expenses used for programs versus administration and for fund-raising. This year CN adopted standards based on a three-year analysis of how the non-profit performed, rather than the previous one-year rating.

            CN states that they are trying to come up with a rating for how well each non-profit performs its mission, a very difficult analysis considering the great diversity in objectives among charities. But the current CN ratings system provides great assurance to donors that a non-profit which earns a high rating is spending its money primarily on its goals, and Boys & Girls Clubs of Nassau County is one of the few at the top!cs.  

Tipping the Scale (TTS) is a collaborative program between Baptist Health and the local Boys & Girls Clubs (BGC) that gives an exceptional boost to job opportunities for teens when they finish high school.  Since 2014, 15 teenagers, members of the two Boys & Girls clubs here in Nassau County, have had the chance to learn about health care, be coached by Baptist Medical Center Nassau (BMCN) mentors and get a modest stipend for every week they attend the program at the hospital—plus earn a chance of a BMCN summer job.