$6.8M Donation Made To Boys & Girls Clubs Of Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND — Noted philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $6.8 million to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio this week.

The Clubs are trying to double the number of children they serve across the region and Scott's donation will be used to open new Clubs in an attempt to expand aide to 20,000 Ohio kids by 2025, according to a Boys & Girls Clubs spokesperson.

The donation was "both unsolicited and unexpected," according to a statement from Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio CEO Jeff Scott. He described the money as "an amazingly generous gift to our kids."

“Our kids deserve our unrelenting efforts,” he added.

Besides the size of the donation, the way the money was procured was unusual, the Clubs said. No one from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio contacted Scott or her team. Instead, Scott's team contacted the Clubs and inquired about efforts to alleviate child poverty in and around Cleveland. They then followed-up and informed Clubs officials of the incoming donation.

Currently, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio operate 40 sites across Cuyahoga, Summit, Lorain and Erie counties. The Clubs currently serve approximately 10,000 children in those counties.

Scott is a novelist and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' ex-wife. She helped him build the powerhouse company. She has given away approximately 18 percent of her fortune since the divorce, according to a news release from the Clubs.

On Thursday, the national Boys & Girls Clubs organization announced Scott was donating $281 million to the organization — the largest gift in the organization's history.