CLUBHOUSE DREAMS
Construction on Whitney Pier Youth Club nearing completion
Construction on Whitney Pier Youth Club nearing completion.
What started three years ago as a dream project to expand and renovate the Whitney Pier Youth Club should finally be completed next month, much to the relief of executive director Chester Borden.
“I’m very pleased,” Borden said Wednesday as he walked around the club that’s still very much a construction zone. “I’m very tired. It’s taken a lot out of me.
“Hopefully this will be all done soon.”
He may be exhausted but as he leads you on a tour around the building, Borden can’t hide his enthusiasm for the work that’s being done throughout the building, which has tripled in square footage.
“Everything you see here was designed with the help of the kids,” he stressed as he quickly moved from room to room on the top floor. “We’re about 90 per cent done up here.”
He makes a stop in the newly designed kitchen that features a pantry that is the size of the club’s former kitchen. The bigger kitchen is necessary since the club prepared 13,000 snacks and 10,000 meals in 2015.
“With the poverty rate, one in three kids living in poverty, sometimes coming here is the only meal they will receive during the day,” said Borden. “It’s what we do. It’s part of the Boys and Girls national mandate to encourage the kids and make them part of the community. And sometimes we have to feed them to do that.”
While it’s coming together now, it has been a project fraught with problems. It started as a $350,000 expansion but will end up costing $800,000, thanks to rising costs associated with renovating the existing building and the addition of the new section.
For example, once the new section is completed, the renovated building, which is attached, had to be also brought up to code, which ended up costing more than expected. It had been expected the labour would be all donated but when the initial workers left to pursue employment in other parts of Canada, replacement workers had to be brought in to complete the various jobs and paid. To pay those workers, Borden found himself in a new role as fundraiser. While he managed to raise $500,000 from people and businesses throughout the community, he admits it’s not a role he relished.
“But I’ll do it — I’ll do whatever it take to get this finished for the kids,” he said. “I work for the kids.”
Borden now expects the club to be completed between Sept. 19 and 26 and plans on having an open house in October. Those who attend will see a larger kitchen with pantry, a DJ/recording studio, computer labs, a weight room, a boardroom and other areas that will cater to the club’s members, about 100 students, who use the club on a daily basis.
There are presently 80 on a waiting list to join and while the expanded facilities will allow more members to join, Borden says more staff will be needed as well. Until the club officially reopens, the programs have been taking place across the street at Whitney Pier Memorial Junior High School.
“I’ve learned a lot from this whole experience. It’s been a long process but we had the older kids in here the other day looking at their area and how they want to decorate it and the smiles on their faces — it made everything worth the struggle we went through over the last three years.”