The Napavine City Council last week unanimously passed a resolution to support the establishment of a Boys and Girls Club location in the town of the Tigers.
Andy Alexander, a board member of the Boys and Girls Club of Lewis County, presented to the council on Tuesday night last week, saying a location in Napavine felt like the organization’s “next logical step.”
The group is in conversations with the landlord of Napavine’s previous city hall building as a potential club location, which Alexander called a “great opportunity.”
Per the council’s resolution, “support” didn’t mean any funding from the city right away, rather, the city’s official stamp of approval. Alexander also hoped the city would encourage more volunteers to get involved with the nonprofit, which currently has a full-time club location in Chehalis.
In Centralia, the Boys and Girls Club has been running out of Jefferson-Lincoln Elementary School. According to previous reporting by The Chronicle, the program is only open for students of the Centralia School District due to limited grant funding.
The Boys and Girls Club of Lewis County is set to open a location in the United Learning Center, a proposed 12,800-square-foot facility in Centralia meant to see educational partnerships between United Way and the Economic Alliance of Lewis County, Discover! Children’s Museum, and Bezos Academy. However, construction on the new facility was postponed after it failed to earn federal funding, according to reporting by The Chronicle from last January.
In the meantime, the Boys and Girls Club is exploring opportunities outside the Twin Cities.
“Our community members are definitely welcoming, and I think this is a perfect fit,” Napavine Mayor Shawn O’Neill said before voting on the resolution. “I know it’s going to be a lot of work and I know you guys got other things going on, but, 100%. I’m behind it. I appreciate the time you took to meet with us.”
Alexander said budget will be the difference between whether or not the nonprofit can move forward with a Napavine location, though he said the board members are hopeful.
The timeline for a new club’s establishment is also unclear, he said.
“We’ve got half of the board that wants to be ready in January. And then, I don’t know. Some of us are thinking, ‘Well, it might take a little bit longer than that.’ We’ve still got the school district to talk to. We want to get their buy-in,” Alexander said. “Our feeling is, Napavine’s a great community. And Napavine really supports itself really well. You’ve got a lot of positive things going on here.”
