Patrick Wynn - Boys & Girls Club of North Alabama

Patrick Wynn

Boys & Girls Club of North Alabama

By Terry L. Watson

Photos Provided by Patrick Wynn

Patrick Wynn is the Chief Executive Officer of The Boys & Girls Club of North Alabama. The areas the organization serves are Huntsville, Scottsboro, Decatur, Athens, Ardmore, and Pineville, AL.

The mission of the organization is to inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need them the most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens. The organization’s code says, “I believe in God and the right to worship according to my own faith and religion. I believe in America and the American way of life, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I believe in fair play, honesty, and sportsmanship. I believe in my Boys & Girls Club, which stands for these things.”

Born and raised in Huntsville, AL, Patrick attended and graduated from Southern Mississippi University. After college, he returned to Huntsville to provide leadership to the community that helped to raise him. “I felt like I had a real tangible role model in my mom, Janice Fletcher. She was a single parent, worked, went to college, and raised three kids. I was able to avoid many of the pitfalls that many of my friends endured due to how she raised and provided for us,” he says.

Coming back to Huntsville is something that Patrick believes he was destined to do. For 26 years, Patrick has worked with the Boys & Girls Club. For the last 16 years, he has served as the organization’s CEO. In his role, Patrick is charged with setting a vision and leading the organization. He adds, “I am required to work with our Board of Directors to ensure that fiscal responsibility and policies and procedures are intact. Ensuring safety and the quality of our program is one of my primary objectives. One thing that I learned is that many people in our community are familiar with the name of the Boys and Girls Club, but many are not aware of the depth of our organization. It is my goal to educate others about our depth and how vital we are to the communities that we serve.”

By design, Boys & Girls Clubs work in and with communities where there is a void of males, fathers, mentors, and role models. These could be rural communities, low-income communities, Indian bases, and military bases. The organization provided essential care for the young people there. The care in mind may consist of education and career development, workforce readiness, ACT prep, public speaking, arts and crafts, driver's education, and more.

I believe that I am successful in my role as CEO because I can relate to those that we serve. I have walked the same path they have. With the help and guidance of God, along with a very special mom, I was able to navigate through tumultuous situations that exist in the areas where I grew up.

Patrick says that he is a firm believer that there is no coincidence. “I believe that God aligned the stars for me to work at the Boys and Girls Club,” he says. Before coming there, Patrick worked as a Therapeutic Group Counselor, and a high school teammate informed him about opportunities at the Boys & Girls Club. “I was ready to get out of my role as a Therapeutic Group Counselor because I felt that wasn’t serving my community.”

What Patrick says he loves most about what he does is the opportunity to work with young people. “I see myself in each kid that walks through our doors. Again, I was a product of single parenting, and I also grew up in public housing, and even more, my mother was a teenage parent. I believe that I am successful in my role as CEO because I can relate to those that we serve. I have walked the same path they have. With the help and guidance of God, along with a very special mom, I was able to navigate through tumultuous situations that exist in the areas where I grew up. I was able to excel despite being in disadvantaged circumstances. Amazingly, I never felt disadvantaged because of the guidance that I had. I believe that God put me in those situations so that I can help the people that I do today.”

As the CEO of the Boys & Girls Club, Patrick shares that he has faced a few challenges and has found ways to overcome them. “Being an African American and wearing a CEO title in the nonprofit space, I have always strived to help people understand that this is a business,” he says. “When I first began, my goal was to understand the business aspect of the organization, and I surrounded myself with people who ran companies. There have been people who have taught me some things and may not realize they have. I am inquisitive by nature, and I ask questions because I want to learn. Over 26 years, I have won many awards, but if you come to my office, you will not see any of them. They are in boxes because I feel that I haven’t arrived and that I am still hungry. I believe that when you stop learning, you stop living. That is why I continue to ask questions and pick others’ brains; I want to get better. I believe that success breeds success. If you are not watching what other successful people are doing, then you don’t want to be successful. I want to pick up successful habits and be the best version of myself.”

Patrick credits many individuals with inspiring and impacting his life. Obviously, his mom has, and Patrick also credits his wife, Kecia, with whom he has shared 20 years of marriage. Together, they have three boys. “My wife is always looking for greatness.” Patrick also finds inspiration in his community. “There are things that were built to stop us from being successful, but still, we rose like a rose from concrete. There are so many people who come from our communities who didn’t begin with an advantage, but we still have found a way to succeed. That is what I love about the communities we serve. It is not about the position you hold or what you own; it is about where you come from. It is also about how many lives you’ve touched,” he says.

It is obvious that Patrick has a genuine desire to help and serve others and being in the role of CEO for the Boys & Girls Club of North Alabama appears to be the perfect fit for him. When asked if there is anything that he would change about the way things have happened along his journey in life, Patrick’s response is very concise. “Your journey makes you who you are. If some of the things that happened to me hadn’t happened, I would be where I am today. I also wish I would have read more when I was a child,” he says.

Looking ahead, Patrick is eager to continue to lead the Boys & Girls Club into greater places. In 2021, he led the organization with its Comprehensive Capital Campaign. A first for them, they were able to raise $13 million dollars, and those funds are being used to build new facilities throughout North Alabama.

Patrick concludes by offering a bit of sound wisdom. “I want to be an airplane. People of great height don’t go backward. Airplanes don’t fly backward. I want to go to great heights like an airplane. We all will make mistakes, but when I make them, I write them down to ensure that it will not happen to me again,” he says.