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Child abuse, molestation and sexual assaults against children have reached epidemic proportions. According to RAINN, every 8 minutes a child is sexually assaulted, "but only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison."  The National Center for Victims of Crime reports that, "Children are most vulnerable to CSA [child sexual abuse] between the ages of 7 and 13." If you Google Boys & Girls Clubs and abuse, you will find a horrifying pattern across the country: children are being abused, the abusers were often already suspected and reported, and Boys & Girls Clubs conducts their own investigations, instead of going to the police.  The children need therapy; instead, they are shunned, shamed, and silenced. Frequently, the perpetrators are not turned in, which allows them to continue harming more and more children.  Since Boys & Girls Clubs are nonprofit organizations, they use donations and public funds.  The money should be used to support children, not to support the defense of sex abuse of children.

At Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley, Paul Dwayne Kilgore was reported by children, employees, parents, and community members, but he wasn't stopped until after he left the organization, when an alert and ethical Mandated Reporter made a report to police.  Boys & Girls Clubs of America tells affiliate sites to conduct their own investigations; at Sonoma Valley, they didn't follow the Mandated Reporter laws of California, and they didn't offer counseling to the children and families.  After continually denying culpability for more than a year and allowing for a restricted donation to be spent on attorneys' fees, Cary Dacy, CEO, Robert Julian, a white collar criminal defense attorney, and Willard "Dub" Hay, offered an illegal NDA to the Compliance Officer to attempt to conceal the truth.  The victims have been left without support.  This story is repeated over and over, as Boys & Girls Clubs of America continues to lobby and argue for their licensing exemption in states throughout the country.  The situation in California, which has some of the strictest laws on Mandated Reporting, demonstrates that Boys & Girls Clubs should not be left to regulate themselves.  After almost five months of attempting to gain compliance, the organization continues to fail to do right by the children and claims "justice has been done"; simultaneously, they have had Joseph O'Dea, the attorney in the Penn State Sandusky matter, contact the former Compliance Officer.  This is not justice.  Justice cannot occur until Boys & Girls Clubs are licensed just like other childcare providers; their actions demonstrate that they do not deserve an exemption.  Please sign the petition to help in obtaining true justice.  Thank you.