On Wednesday night at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., the Boys & Girls Clubs of America held their annual awards ceremony. Currently, there are more than 4,600 clubs that serve more than 4.7 million young people worldwide.
During the ceremony, the organization honored its National Youth of the Year recipient, Sabrina C. McFarland from San Francisco, who received a $100,000 academic scholarship. The National Youth of the Year is the highest honor the Boys & Girls Clubs of America recognize.
Among those in attendance were two Redskins defensive backs, Josh Norman and Landon Collins, who both have ties to the organization and wanted to celebrate the achievements of all of the winners.
Norman launched his own charitable foundation, "Starz24," in 2017 to "provide enrichment to children through community events and youth programs." In April, his foundation partnered with Boys & Girls Clubs of America for Norman's annual celebrity basketball game.
"I ended up partnering with the Boys & Girls club just because what we do, and everything is pretty much similar in how [Boys & Girls club] go about handling the youth," Norman said. "It was just important for me to be partnered with an organization that has the stems and the arts with the physical outlet and have it under their curriculum."
Collins, on the other hand, has had extensive experience with the Boys & Girls club, as he was once a club kid himself.
"For me just to be experiencing that and see the political side of [Boys and Girls Clubs of America] was awesome," Collins said. "Just seeing what the foundations are doing to promote kids to just be great within themselves and trust within themselves and believe within themselves is an awesome feeling."
Collins also works with the organization back in his home state of Louisiana.
"I do a lot of things back at home with [Boys & Girls Club], like movies, gift bags, schools and equipment -- whatever I can," Collins said.
