Boys & Girls Club earns prestigious Roxanne Spillett Honor Award

CASPER, Wyo. — The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming recently received the prestigious 2024–25 Roxanne Spillett Honor Award for innovative programs in the area of Workforce Readiness for its Career Works program. The Southwest Regional Conference encompasses Arkansas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.

The Roxanne Spillett Honor Award is given to programs that are developed locally. Career Works was created in 2022 to meet the needs of the community for high-quality, local candidates to fill vacant positions. The program is for youth ages 13–18 and utilizes a multifaceted approach to give youth practical skills, work-based learning experiences and exposure to over 30 different careers.

Since the beginning of the program, more than 1,600 different youth have participated in one facet of the program.

The program has quickly proven effective at providing youth the skills they need to be successful, with 81% of participants saying they felt they had the knowledge to apply what they learned through the program in the real world.

The success of Career Works has hinged on the leadership of Amanda Preddice-Milne, career development coordinator, and Sherman Hill, teen director, as well as the amazing business partnerships that have been built throughout the program.

Each year, different businesses around Natrona County have hosted club youth to participate in the work-based learning opportunities and have included E&F Transport, Towing, and Recovery; Keyhole Technologies; Keyhole Outdoor Living; Moser Energy Systems, Automation and Electronics; the USDA; Casper Animal Clinic; The Forbidden Forest; Interior Solutions; ART 321; the Nicolaysen Art Museum; the Bureau of Land Management; Casper-Natrona County International Airport Safety Department; All Around Safety; Jonah Bank; HiCo Welding; Pepper Tank; Ford Wyoming Center; Johnson Restaurant Group; and IBEW.

“[Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming CEO Ashley Bright] shared a vision with us as a staff of a program that would allow our youth to graduate with a plan, and skills to do it,” club area director Brian McCarthy said. “His vision has allowed this program to take off! To see how far we have come with this program has been truly amazing and is such a huge credit to the work that Amanda and Sherman have done to ensure our youth are supported in this area.”