Renovations for new Daleville BGC move forward

New windows were delivered April 16 and new interior doors are being installed in the former Boy Scout Hut on Donnell Boulevard in Daleville.

Sheet rock repairs to water damage will be next on the renovations that are part of an effort to make a Boys and Girls Club in Daleville a reality.

On April 16 Daleville Mayor Jayme Stayton and Arron Gonzalez from Builders Cash and Carry unloaded new windows to be installed in the former Boy Scout Hut.

The city-owned building had been vandalized some months ago, Stayton said, as he walked through the building. Doors were kicked in and windows broken during the criminal activity. “We were in the process of getting everything ready to repair and remodel the building and the subject of the Boys and Girls Club using the building came up.

“It was a really good fit and something that could benefit the whole community,” Stayton said. “We’re going to get some volunteers to come in here after all the coronavirus quarantine is over and help fix this building up.”

Boys and Girls Clubs of America is a national organization comprised of local chapters that provide after-school programs for young people. It’s more than a daycare, said Joel Adams, a citizen who is the driving force behind the project. “It’s a structured academic program.”

Adams is among those working with the Eufaula Boys and Girls Club to bring a Boys and Girls Club to Daleville. “Our kids have nowhere to go after school,” he said as he outlined the plans during one of several community fundraisers for the club. “The existing program shut down in August of last year.

“I first spoke to the Daleville City Council and asked them to reinstate the previous after school program and I was told to come back with a viable option,” Adams said. “That’s when I started researching about Boys and Girls Clubs.

“As a concerned parent I know that we’ve got a community full of latch-key kids,” Adams said. “A lot of us don’t work in Daleville but this is a family community. We like to come home in the afternoon and have our kids be here.”

After contacting the national office, Adams contacted the 300-member Eufaula Boys and Girls Club program. He said that he and Stamps visited the Eufaula program. “They agreed to sponsor us and here we are,” he said about the club that he hoped—pre-COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of any building deemed “non-essential”—to open by June.

The city authorized Adams to use the old Scout building on Donnell Boulevard in Daleville free of charge for the proposed Boys and Girls Club.

The next step has been to raise the required $20,000 “seed money.” The fundraising effort kicked off with a Spaghetti Dinner held Feb. 7. A second fundraiser was a Magic Show Feb. 22 at the Daleville Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6020.

“We have determined that there is a significant need for our community to have an after school care for our kindergarten through sixth grade students that includes assistance with homework,” Adams explained. “A needs assessment was done through the schools and identified 109 children so we’re figuring on serving between 80 to 100 kids the first year.

“I know first hand that the Boys and Girls Club is a very good organization,” Stayton said. “I actually grew up going to Boys and Girls Club so I am very familiar with them.

“The citizens of Daleville will have an after school and summer program again when we get this going,” he added. “I think it will be a good thing for the city of Daleville.”