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By MELODY JAMESON
mj@observernews.net
Now about half way toward opening a Riverview Boys and Girls Club, plans for the facility dedicated to youngsters five to 18 continue to take shape. This architectural rendering shows the 15,000-square-foot club as it is proposed for a two-acre site on Krycul Avenue. Pledges total $1.9 million and fund raising also continues to create the necessary reserve for club maintenance and operation.
Photo courtesy the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay
The 15,000-square-foot facility for youngsters five to 18 on a two-acre parcel abutting Krycul Avenue is moving steadily ahead, approximately at the half-way mark between original idea and open house, according to local leaders behind the project.
Funding now stands at $1.9 million in pledges, coming from both small and large donors, Brad Baumgardner, president of Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay, said this week.
Breaking ground for construction of the one-story building designed to provide a wide variety of healthy, instructional activities for area youngsters, particularly in after-school programs, is being anticipated late in 2010, with the doors being thrown open in 2011, Baumgardner said.
“We’ve completed the long rezoning process and are close to finalizing the necessary permits,” the president added. He said he expects to be able to present formal design plans to the community steering group when it meets on December 2 at the Riverview Chamber of Commerce office on Riverview Drive.
The club complex will be located on the west side of Krycul Avenue, in the northeast corner of property owned by the Roman Catholic Church diocese. Resurrection Catholic Church occupies part of the land and the acreage earmarked for the club facility was acquired under a long-term lease agreement with the diocese, Baumgardner said.
Raising monies to underwrite the project began in 2007, recalled Earl Lennard, a life-long Riverview area resident and former Hillsborough County school system superintendent. Lennard, for whom Lennard High School in Ruskin is named, was appointed Hillsborough’s Supervisor of Elections earlier this year to complete the unexpired term of the late Phyllis Busansky. The first large donation came in the name of Ray Campo and the Campo family, which operated a large dairy on U.S. 301 north of Riverview for much of the 20th century, Lennard noted. Their $750,000 in seed money for the youth facility was followed by a substantial contribution from the family of the late Wes and Joanne Kearney, who built highly successful land clearing and real estate sales businesses headquartered in the Riverview area, Lennard added. George Simmons, representing another of the pioneering families with deep roots in East Hillsborough, also “has taken a considerable interest” in the project, Lennard said, adding that a significant number of smaller donations have helped take the funding level to nearly $2 million.
Lennard called the participation and interest in bringing the Boys and Girls Club programs to the Southeast Hillsborough area “ very exciting. And things look very positive for a ground breaking in 2010,” he added.
The concrete block structure with an exterior façade finished in stucco will include a number of classroom workshops, a gymnasium and a large kitchen that is to be shared with the church on occasion, Baumgardner said.
And when completed, the new club facility will be staffed by two full-time teacher-counselors with the appropriate college level degrees, the president added. Staff will be rounded out with six to eight part-time personnel, he said. In keeping with the organization’s mission to impact Tampa Bay area communities through investment in their youth, club staffers must be qualified to serve both as instructors and mentors, Baumgardner indicated.
The Boys and Girls Club of Tampa Bay network currently includes 15 clubs in Hillsborough County and another three in Pasco County. It was founded in Tampa in 1926 and functions today on the premise that “We are not just a place for kids to go after school, we are a gateway to hope and opportunity,” according to its mission statement. “We offer those youth who need us most, the chance to learn, excel and feel safe, while preparing them to be productive citizens.”
Copyright 2009 Melody Jameson
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