Dudley Street community center gets $80 million grant

Yawu Miller

Last Friday, Salvation Army officials notified Divisional Commander Fred Van Brunt that a proposed Dudley Street community center would get $80 million in funding.

It was several dozen phone calls and 24 hours later that 100 community residents, civic leaders and elected officials crowded into the community meeting room at the Alexander Magnolia housing development to celebrate what for many was a dream long coming.

“Aside from the housing and all the work this community has done, the dream of a community center was there 22 years ago,” said Julio Henriquez, chairman of Dudley Neighbors Incorporated, the housing development nonprofit founded by the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. “Today that dream was culminated.”

DSNI activists joined forces with the Salvation Army last year after Van Brunt approached Mayor Thomas Menino seeking a site for a community center.

“I said to the commander, ‘I have the site,’” Menino said. “No question about it. This is the perfect site.”

The planned site includes a vacant parcel of land on Dudley Street near Alexander Street. Several houses behind the site would have to be razed for the construction of the community center. While DSNI had been working with the Bird Street Community Center on a collaborative venture to build a community center on that site, that effort was not close to fruition.

Before moving forward with the Salvation Army, DSNI staff insisted that the Army agree to a community-driven process to plan the community center. Teenagers in the community sat in on the meetings that led to the proposal for the center.

The plan calls for a center that will accommodate children, youth, families and senior citizens with 85,000 feet of floor space, a gymnasium, pool, health club, auditorium, library, computer center, commercial kitchen, chapel and outdoor recreational fields.

“I think the meetings really helped the residents feel like they had a voice,” said Titciana Barros, a teenager who sits on the DSNI board.

In addition to the funds the Salvation Army has raised, the Salvation Army and DSNI plan to raise an additional $20 million. While the $80 million will go into land acquisition and development, the additional funds will be used as an endowment that will subsidize the operating costs of the center.

The funding comes from a donation that Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, made to the Salvation Army with the intention of building community centers bearing her family name. The Kroc centers are aimed at underserved youth and families.

Teens in the Dudley Street neighborhood currently have access to two centers bordering their neighborhood — the Vine Street Center near Blue Hill Avenue and the Bird Street Center in Upham’s corner. But both centers are operating at full capacity with no space or funding to expand.

The youth center will be large enough to accommodate youth not only from the Dudley Street neighborhood, but surrounding neighborhoods as well, according to Denise Gonsalves, who heads the organization Cape Verdean Community UNIDO.

“It’s going to really be an opportunity for a heightened level of collaboration between everyone,” she said. “It will help us work together. It will help bring kids together from different communities and give them concrete opportunities to discuss and deal with the issues between them.”

“There are other community centers,” added teenager Joceline Fidalgo, “but something this big will attract more people.”

Menino said the new community center will help the city in its efforts to create positive outlets for teens.

“Our strategy is to put community centers wherever they’re needed,” he said. “We owned this land, which was key to this happening. I told the Salvation Army I’d step up to the plate.”

In Jackson Square, a consortium of developers are planning for a youth center at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Centre Street.