By Erica Newport

On a recent Friday, Boys & Girls Clubs’ donors, Irving and Marilyn Naiditch reminisce bygone days from the start of their 65-year marriage and years prior, to when Irving would head straight from school to the Boys Club circa 1935.

Their glances lean into each other’s memories, as they consecutively thread together moments in time when significant, nearly prophetic, events transpired.

“I was a member of the Boys Club in 1935 or 1936,” Irving said. “It gave us something to do when our parents were working. So, instead of going home after school, we went to the Club. It gave us something to do besides getting in trouble.”

Irving, from his upbringing in the stockyards of Chicago, said he’s always had a deep affection for the Boys & Girls Clubs all his life. Although he is currently a board member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sarasota County (BGCSC), he served on the board in Chicago, too. Irving joined BGCSC Board by way of a wood carving class in the late 1970s, and still continues to carve on Wednesdays at the Club.

He was age eight when he first stepped foot into the Chicago Club, a safe place for boys, while his hardworking parents worked late into the evening to provide what they could during tenuous times.

“It’s really still the same way today,” he added. “We service thousands of children and most are from single-parent families. The affection for these kids has always been there; the incentive to help is there, too.”

At age 18, Irving met Marilyn at the University of Illinois where they were both freshmen. They soon married. Marilyn enjoys sharing that she’s only two weeks younger than her husband. She also enjoys sharing her fervor for the Club’s extraordinary youth.

“I think it’s so important, especially now, to support the Boys & Girls Clubs,” she said. “There are so many children that are floundering after school. They return home to mothers who are working, single parents, and they need direction, so they can go on and lead productive lives.”

She expressed it was vital for today’s youth to be motivated, to continue on in school, and to do well.

“These kids nowadays need a lot of help, as they don’t know where to go and they don’t know what to do and they just need something structured,” Marilyn said.

But, perhaps, they both add, in the spirit of sharing efforts, the lives of adversely affected youth can be lifted and changed for the better.

“Learning to share is most important,” Marilyn said. “I think I’d like to have people open their eyes to what’s needed here and to share some of their benefits with others.”

Irving said he feels exactly the same way, especially coming from an adversely affected home where his family struggled to make it in the world.

“Sharing is the most important thing we can do,” he said. “You can’t live in a shell by yourself. There are very important needs out there and these kids are the next generations. They will be running the world.”

Irving secures the concept of the future that the Boys & Girls Clubs’ youth are paving by highlighting the local club candidates he interviewed for the organizational Youth of the Year competition.

“When you have these extraordinary four to five kids to choose from, and they are all good, and they all have very sad stories about how they grew up, it’s so hard to pick out one that is better than the other,” Irving pointed out. “They all have stories about how much they’ve achieved. They have stories about where they come from and what they’ve suffered.”

It is the human story that connects us all, and that story continues to evolve into transforming experiences for youth through the efforts of a village connected to the Boys & Girls Clubs.

“I would like more people to become aware of the needs of children from single-parent homes, drug and alcoholic homes, children that go to bed hungry and without any caring supervision,” Irving said in closing. “I would like more people to understand the serious needs of these children who are black, white, Hispanic, all religions or no religion, and who are the seeds of the harvest for the future.”