Pittsboro Boys & Girls Club to open by summer

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PITTSBORO — The town’s budding Boys & Girls Club and Pittsboro’s Kiwanis Club hosted a groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday to announce their partnership and plans to begin operations within the year.

About 40 gathered outside the Kiwanis facility, located near downtown on Credle Street. For months, it has been expected that Pittsboro’s Kiwanis Club would host the Boys & Girls Club, as the News + Record previously reported. But Saturday was the first time members of each organization publicized the relationship.

“Today we are officially announcing our partnership with the Boys & Girls Club,” said Nigel Sullivan, president of the Pittsboro Kiwanis Club, “and now we are asking you, the public, to help bring this idea to fruition through donation of funds which are needed to start the club. Pittsboro Kiwanis is excited to be a part of this and looks forward to seeing many local businesses and public entities step forward to help out.”

If all goes according to plan, the club will begin hosting school-age youth by the start of next school year, according to Pittsboro Commissioner Kyle Shipp.

“And, of course, that’s revised from my ambitious goal when we talked before,” he told the News + Record.

“Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Carolina is really looking forward to seeing the town of Pittsboro open its very own Boys & Girls Club,” said Daniel Simmons, the CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Carolina. “Pittsboro is a great place to live and has an even more exciting future. We’re thrilled to be here to help this community do anything and everything it can to close the gap for the kids who need us most, be it academic gaps, food insecurity, and more. We stand ready to work alongside the community to build resilient kids and an even more resilient Pittsboro.”

Back in summer, when Shipp first assembled the Pittsboro Boys & Girls Club Advisory Board with support from the Sanford-based Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Carolina, the group hoped to welcome members by January. But an amalgam of hurdles — the lingering pandemic and funding shortfalls especially — forced the club to adjust.

Now, with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout surging and coronavirus case numbers waning, it seems realistic to open by end of summer, Shipp says. But funding remains a significant barrier.

“So this groundbreaking (was) really the public kickoff of the major fundraising efforts with that goal to open by the school year,” he said.

Before the Boys & Girls Club can begin operations, the Kiwanis facility must undergo some costly renovations. There are no plans for new construction, but modification is needed to meet regulatory standards for a program such as the Boys & Girls Club.

“The improvements to the Kiwanis Club are really about making the building as accessible as possible,” Chevon Moore of Hobbs Architects, which has been contracted to perform renovations, said at the event. “Grim Hobbs and Taylor Hobbs and I have been so very thankful to be a part of this and thankful to all of you.”

It will cost about $25,000 to modify the Kiwanis building for the Boys & Girls Club’s unique requirements. About $18,000 of that will go toward purchase and installation of a movable partition that will allow club staff to segment what is now a single-room building.

“But, I mean, the function we get out of it in terms of doubling the amount of rooms is great,” Shipp said. “But that is kind of an expensive piece of equipment.”

Besides upfront costs to prepare the building for use, the club will need about $220,000 before it can open. Families will only have to pay $1 a week for a membership that includes daily after-school supervision — with activities, homework assistance and more — and meals. To meet operating costs, then, donations are indispensable. So far the club has about $5,000 for renovations and $7,500 toward the $220,000 goal.

“So that’s our real focus right now,” Shipp said, “now that we’ve got through a lot of the other things that we need to plan for the club.”

Club representatives have been in discussion with several local organizations, Shipp says, and he expects that soon they will announce some “transformational gifts.” One anonymous business has already pledged to match all donations made to the club before May 1, up to $10,000, and other area businesses have hinted at similar contributions.

At Saturday’s ceremony, Mayor Jim Nass implored the community to support the Boys & Girls Club with their participation and their money. If funding a cause that improves young lives was not already incentive enough, he said, then Pittsboro residents can donate confident their contribution will also improve the town at large.

“The investment that will be made in this Boys & Girls Club in Pittsboro will benefit not only the children that go through this program over the years,” he said, “but everyone that lives here in Pittsboro and everyone that lives in Chatham County. It will provide a springboard for excellence.”

“I will do everything within my power,” he added, “to see that the Town is supportive of this as long as I’m around, so thank you all.”

Other local leaders voiced their advocacy, as well, and solicited community support. Rev. Samuel Lassiter of Davis Chapel AME Zion Church emphasized that youth services can be instrumental in attracting young families to the area.

“If we come together and open this Boys & Girls Club, we can make Pittsboro the place where people want to move to,” he said, “the place where people want to bring their children to and raise them; the place that people look and say, ‘I’m from that Town.’”

Ultimately, the club will provide a service, Shipp says, that Pittsboro has needed for years to make life better for its youngest residents.

“With the academic support, the assistance with food and so much more,” Shipp said, “things that have always been a part of the Boys & Girls Club, this program is really distinct from some other organizations. It’s special and essential.”

To make a donation to the Pittsboro Boys & Girls Club, visit https://qrco.de/PittsboroBGC or send your contribution to PO Box 551, Pittsboro, NC 27312. Parents and children interested in joining the club are invited to fill out a survey at http://qrco.de/PBGCsurvey.

Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.