Three generations of Phoenix Club leaders got together for lunch this week, swapping stories of good deeds, good times and a good idea that’s endured.
To listen was to learn why the Memphis-based nonprofit and young men’s civic and social club has survived to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a black-tie party tonight at Memphis Country Club.
“It’s a social organization with a great cause,” said Dabney Collier, 36, a past president. “The more fun everybody seems to have, the better the fund-raising goes.”
Fund-raising — to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis — and fun seems forever in fashion for this mix of 35-(or so)-and under businessmen, bankers, attorneys and more. The club has raised nearly $4 million in its history, including about $175,000 for the fiscal year ending this month.
Fund-raising event include the Harbortown 5K, a Christmas greeting card campaign, Mardi Gras party, and a new martini mixer and celebrity auction — and there’s one beneficiary.
“There aren’t many Boys & Girls Clubs, I’m aware of across the country that have the same kind of support we get from such a group,” said Brad Baumgardner, president and CEO of the local clubs. “The Phoenix Club is the heart and soul of the Boys & Girls Clubs. They’ve provided funding and leadership and board members, and even in some instances they provide some program initiatives, also.”
A past president, Bruce Hopkins, 54 said the Phoenix Club was “the springboard for my community service,” and the reason he juggles various board memberships today. He and Collier were joined at their lunch this week by new president Todd Photopulos, 34, and first president John Thomason, 75.
“It seems to me the openness of the Phoenix Club reflects the openness of Memphis.” Thomason said. “It seems to me Memphis is a place where you can come in from out of town, and if you’re smart and if you work hard you can be successful. You don’t have to be a member of a clique. You don’t have to have been born here.”
The club officially began in 1956 as a local chapter of a California-based young men’s civic group, the 20-30 Club. The early focus was on working with delinquent youths, but that plan lacked traction. By 1958 it was reborn — hence “Phoenix,” rising from its ashes — as an independent organization. The focus shifted to raising funds to establish the city’s first Boys Club, which opened in 1962. And so the focus remains on aiding that organization, which now has five clubs and served 7,000 boys and girls last year.
“Hey, without them we wouldn’t be here,” Baumgardner said.
The Phoenix Club has about 110 members and no paid staff, and prides itself on being able to operate like a business when there’s an event to pull off — say, the June 3 Harbortown 5K, which is expected to raise, $40,000.
