Boys & Girls Club director helps Pee Dee kids find a place to belong

By Dwight Dana
Morning News reporter
Published: July 16, 2008

FLORENCE — Neal Zimmerman’s last name might be at the end of the alphabetic order, but it’s first when it comes to those attending the Boys & Girls Club of the Pee Dee Area.

Zimmerman has been executive director for 13½ years. In addition to Florence, there are clubs in Cheraw, Darlington, Hartsville, Pamplico and Timmonsville.

Zimmerman grew up in the Boys & Girls Club because his father was an executive director in clubs in Orlando and Gainesville, Fla., and Cleveland, Tenn.

But he said he thought baseball was going to be his calling after winning a scholarship to play at Birmingham Southern University. The former catcher has an undergraduate degree in history and secondary education and a master’s in athletic administration.

He returned every summer but one while in college to help his father at the Boys & Girls Club in Gainesville. He spent that summer coaching baseball.

“I started missing the kids before the summer was over,” he said amid the din of children in the next room at the Florence Boys & Girls Club. “I missed teaching and helping the kids learn leadership skills and seeing the kids blossom.”

Zimmerman learned an important lesson early on from experienced directors at Boys & Girls clubs: “You can teach a whole bunch on the sports field, but you can teach just as much in the game room, gym, library or arts-and-crafts room. Plus, you can reach kids there who aren’t sports minded.”

Zimmerman worked under five different directors during 10 years at the West Palm Beach, Fla., Boys & Girls clubs. He moved into management under the fourth director.

There were three clubs in West Palm when he started and 10 when he left. His main job was opening the new clubs, which he said he tired of.

“I decided it was time to move on and applied for the job opening in Florence,” he said. “I had never heard of Florence before we came here.”

And he hasn’t looked back.

Unit director Michael Woods grew up in the Florence Boys & Girls Club. Three other club natives now attending college are working there this summer, even though they could make more money elsewhere.

“One of the things we try to teach the kids is that people here will support you no matter what the circumstances, and no matter what the circumstance is, as they get older, they should support others,” Zimmerman said.

“We concentrate on serving kids that other people don’t serve. We recruit the kid we see walking down the street after school. Some 90 percent of our kids don’t belong to any other organization than the Boys & Girls Club. Kids come to all our Pee Dee clubs because the staffs make them feel welcome. Our staff is second to none. ”

And Zimmerman said the same thing goes for the board, which is led by Tom Sims, a senior manager at Honda of South Carolina Manufacturing Inc.

Meanwhile, Zimmerman may have never met his wife, Nancy, had it not been for the West Palm Beach club. He suspended her oldest son. A year later, they were married.