Boys & Girls Club to build 10-acre campus
The Boys & Girls Club of the Austin Area is moving forward with a 10-acre campus in East Austin that will serve 250 to 500 low-income children and teens a day.
The new 32,000-squarefoot facility, located at 6648 Ed Bluestein Blvd., near Manor Road, will enable the nonprofit organization to boost its reach with afterschool and summer programs.
The new facility “will address real challenges facing youth in East Austin,” said Misti Potter, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of the Austin Area. “We know that when a Boys & Girls Club moves into a neighborhood, risky behaviors and school absences decline, while school attendance and grades improve.”
While the new facility will allow the organization to serve hundreds more students, demand studies show the need is much greater, with more than 8,000 youths in the local area needing support, according to the organization. The Boys & Girls Club will break ground Tuesday on its new flagship Home Club on the Sheth Family Campus, thanks to more than $5 million in recent contributions. The new campus, named for Adria and Brian Sheth, who gave the organization a multimillion-dollar donation, will include a teen center; indoor and outdoor athletic facilities; a STEM learning center and library. The indoor athletic facility also will bear the name of the St. David’s Foundation, which donated $1 million. Another $1 million came from an anonymous donor.
The organization’s Austin administrative offices also will be on the campus.
The Boys & Girls Club of Austin still must raise additional support to open the facility and has launched a campaign, #BringUsHome, to raise the needed money.
The organization sees the new campus as “a place where families can gather and grow together,” Potter said, and further its mission of making a difference in the lives of area youths.