The St. Cloud Boys and Girls Club got an upgrade last week, thanks to volunteers from Addition Financial. About 20 employees turned out Friday morning to spruce up landscaping around the club’s building and to lay rubber mulch in a play area behind the building.
“We’re a not-for-profit credit union,” said Aaron Sanders, Addition Financial public relations specialist. “We also have a foundation, and we do grants to a bunch of local nonprofits every year. Boys and Girls Club of St. Cloud was one of our, last year in 2023, our grant class. In addition to giving the grant money, we try to make the relationship a little bit deeper. So it’s more than giving a check. This is one of the ways that we give back, in addition to the money. We come out and put man hours in. We’re doing about 100 total volunteer hours today. And then, we also reached out to the Home Depot of St. Cloud, and they were kind enough to fund $6,000 worth of rubber mulch.”
Nicco Palmero, interim service director of the Club, said the rubber mulch will provide a safer, cleaner environment for the students to play.
“We opened up in December 2022, and so we’re a very young club, very small club, but a mighty club,” said Palmero. “We want our club members to come to a wonderful place. We want it to be clean and we want it to be safe for them. This rubber mulch is going to help this backyard area, so if they fall or anything like that, it’s a safe little cushion for them while they’re running around and playing,” he said.
