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A jewel on north Fair Oaks Avenue prized by everyone, the Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena’s Mackenzie-Scott Branch (formerly Boys’ Club of Pasadena) had an Olympic-size pool, large gymnasium, and computers (and still does today!). The first Boys' Club in the United States was founded in 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1906, 53 independent Boys' Clubs came together in Boston to form a national organization, the Federated Boys' Clubs. The Boys Club of Pasadena was founded in 1937.
In 1964 the Club acquired a Safeway property at 2020 N. Fair Oaks Avenue with the aid of local resident Miss Sophia Mackenzie, and converted it into the Boys Club of Pasadena clubhouse. In 1965 the corner lot of the Mackenzie Property was sold to Gulf Oil Company for $50,000 to contribute to operating funds for the Club. In 1967 additional reconstruction was completed at the Mackenzie Branch adding a stairway, three new classrooms, and a photo lab. In 1973, the Mackenzie Branch was destroyed by an arsonist fire on Memorial Day. Major corporations came to help with getting the building rebuilt, and it reopened in 1975 after running programs for a year in a mobile trailer. O.M. Scott, one of the original founders of IBM, and his grandchildren were connected to the Club and generously re-purchased the Gulf Oil Company corner lot and built the Scott Center, a building utilized for early childhood programs having received accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. This concluded an extensive two-year process after which the Boys Club of Pasadena became the first organization in Pasadena to achieve this high honor. In 1984, the Mackenzie building was redeveloped to meet modern building codes and in 1989 membership in the Boys Club of Pasadena reached an all-time high of 6,920 children served. In 1990 the Club began serving both boys and girls and changed the name to Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena.
In the early days, to garner community support, Club members canvassed the community with a trophy and jersey asking for sponsorships from businesses. The Wonder Bread store on Montana (today Kentucky Fried Chicken) provided discounted bread and sweets to Club kids. Local churches, Berry and Sweeny, and RJ Liquor on the corner of Washington Blvd. and N. Fair Oaks sponsored the Boys Club of Pasadena’s traveling sports teams.
Over the years, numerous volunteer coaches and mentors supported the youth attending the Club. At one point, there were 40 in-house teams with volunteer coaches. The Club also had young men who twice won the National Youth of the Year program title that included a meeting with the President of the United States – truly an honor!