The Pigeon Forge Boys & Girls Club was recently distinguished as having the best program in the world for clubs with a budget under $200,000. “That’s a pretty high honor,” said Elizabeth Robinson, director of the club during the time it won, from October 2000 through October 2001. Robinson is now director at the Sevierville branch. “We have 31,000 Boys & Girls Clubs across the world,” she said. Whether shooting hoops or planning a mission to Mars, the club strived for program excellence in every activity, Robinson said. The Mission to Mars program was run in cooperation with NASA’s National Education Endowment. The idea was for kids to decide which 100 members of the community would be selected to go to Mars if the Earth became inhabitable. The kids asked, “what type of people would be important to bring,” Robinson said.