Marietta-headquartered Girls, Inc. announced in its newsletter that it was awarded a $427,000 grant from the Georgia Department of Education.

According to the announcement, The Building Opportunities in Out-of-School Time (BOOST) Grants Program “seeks to leverage out-of-school time and whole child supports to address learning loss in Georgia, especially due to the pandemic.”

The announcement continued:

The Georgia Department of Education, in partnership with the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network, is awarding $27 million in BOOST grants to community and statewide organizations, and Girls Inc. just received the good news that we were selected! This project was funded by the Georgia Department of Education through Georgia’s American Rescue Plan education allocation and administered in partnership with the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network. It was a highly competitive grant process, and we are ecstatic to be chosen, but we know the work does not end here. We are eligible to renew the grant for two more years, and we intend to make that happen. With the help of this initial grant, we will continue to expand and improve our afterschool and summer learning programs and remain dedicated to serving even more girls. 

About Girls, Inc.

The national organization that later became Girls, Inc., the National Girls Clubs, was founded in 1864 to serve girls and young women who were experiencing upheaval brought on by the Civil War.

Girls Clubs, Inc. of Greater Atlanta was founded in 1974 after a nine-year-old Cobb County girl, Debbie Randall, was found raped and murdered.

Irma Glover and Joyce Dunaway Parker decided that the abduction was in part due to the lack of a safe after-school environment for girls.

They approached the Marietta City Council and the Cobb County Commission to get land to create the Cobb-Marietta Girls Club, which later became Girls, Inc. of Greater Atlanta.