ROGERS -- Children heading back to the Rogers location of the Benton County Boys & Girls Club will be welcomed with fresh paint, carpet and other building improvements this fall.
Work started Monday with staff members repainting walls and moving furniture. New carpet tiles were scheduled to go down Wednesday. A kitchen remodel will continue after the rest of the project is complete, but they'll be ready to welcome kids Aug. 18, said Todd Huff, Rogers director.
At A Glance
Building History
The Rogers club is one of four facilities in the Boys & Girls Club of Benton County. The 409 S. Eighth St. building was once an armory for the Arkansas National Guard. The Rogers School District used the building after a new armory was built at 1408 S. First St. News reports indicate the new armory was built in the 1980s. School officials discussed selling the building in late 1999, and the Boys & Girls Club purchased it in 2001.
Source: Rogers Historical Museum
The kitchen project will make the biggest difference in club operations, Huff said. Right now it functions more as a storage area; all food preparation is done off site because the kitchen doesn't have a three compartment sink to clean, rinse and sanitize dishes. The laminate on some of the cabinets is peeling. Those will be removed and new storage installed, Huff said.
Snacks are first on the schedule when kids get off the bus at the center. The club helped families with food baskets during Christmas and Thanksgiving. If they had a commercial kitchen prep area, they could have a community meal, Huff said.
"If I want to feed all my kids Thanksgiving dinner ... I can't do that right now," he said.
A $42,854 grant from a Lowe's project that partners with the national Boys & Girls Club organization will pay for the remodel. The Rogers club was one of 20 recipients announced in May, the only one in Arkansas, said Natalie Turner, Lowe's spokeswoman. The company's philanthropic focus points are community improvement and kindergarten through 12th-grade public education. Boys & Girls Clubs fit both, she said.
"We see it as kind of a perfect mix of our two pillars of giving," Turner said.
The Rogers club opened in the former armory building in 2002, said Jacob Hutson, chief professional officer for Benton County. The carpet being replaced this week is probably that old, he said. About seven years ago, the building had some improvements made to it, Hutson said. Getting money for the improvements took time but has been a goal for a couple years, he said.
The building isn't new. A cornerstone on the building marks it as a 1940 Works Progress Administration building.
Still, Hutson said, the club wants to have high-class facilities.
"Our kids deserve the best," he said.
Playground improvements were part of making the club a better place, Hutson said. Playground equipment damaged by a fallen tree will be replaced.
Back-to-school is a busy time of year for the companies that inspect playground equipment, but club representatives are working to get an inspector to review the damage and recommend either repair or replacing the equipment.
Having a clean, safe place to play is a big deal, Huff said. Scholarships paid the way for about a third of the more than 300 children enrolled in a recent summer program, he said.
The program has an average of 175 children during after-school programs, Huff said. Forty to 50 of them get homework help in the learning center just off the building's central gymnasium. The grant will pay for acoustical ceiling tiles in the building's classrooms in addition to storage and some landscaping.
"We don't want kids to come in and just play. We want to teach them," he said.
Improving the club is great, said Brayan Martinez, youth development coordinator for the Rogers club.
About half the staff grew up in the club, Huff said. Martinez was a member before he joined the staff about a year ago.
"I can call it a second home," he said.
When the kids come back they'll probably run up and ask him if he noticed the changes, he said.
"I think they're going to be pretty excited," Martinez said.
NW News on 08/07/2014