Boy’s Club breaks ground

Yawu Miller

Teenagers who frequent the Boys and Girls Club on Warren Street have long had their own room in the clubhouse — a game room with a pool table and space for other activities.

The problem is that one room has never been enough.

“You have to see it to believe it — 50 kids in that one room,” said Director Andrea Swain.

While overcrowding has been a tradition at the Boys and Girls Club for years, all that will soon change when the clubhouse completes a two-year, $7 million renovation.

Boys and Girls Club officials joined elected officials last week to break ground on the renovation project, which will create 43,000 square feet of program space including a 5,000-square-foot expanded teen center.

“It’s going to be amazing,” Swain says of the new clubhouse.

Much of the current clubhouse, built in 1967, will remain in place, while a teen center will be added along with a media center, a school-age child care center, a performing arts space and a commercial kitchen.

In the two-year renovation period, the club will hold its activities in spaces at the nearby Dearborn Middle School, the Orchard Garden School and the Madison Park Community Center.

When the renovations are completed, the clubhouse, which currently serves 70 to 100 teens on an average day, will likely be able to accommodate as many as 200, according to teen director Peter Rosemond.

The new space will better enable the clubhouse to serve the changing mission of the Boys and Girl’s Clubs, Rosemond said.

“All Boys and Girls clubs have really made a shift away from the idea that they’re just gym and swim places,” he commented. “We’ve moved to a more academic model.”

The club currently offers tutoring in reading, writing and math. It also offers MCAS test tutoring, a debate club and a college club that helps students with college applications and essays.