Alex Le talks Sunday about the benefits of going to a Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington clubhouse as a child. The Columbia River High School senior will attend Washington State University next school year. (Photos by Natalie Behring/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
For Columbia River High School senior Alex Le, the new Heights O.K. 2 Clubhouse in Vancouver means that more children will have the opportunities he had growing up.
Le, 18, came from a home with rigid rules and struggled with math, he said Sunday, addressing a crowd of about 70 people just before they got a sneak peek at the clubhouse. Le spent many of his years at similar clubhouses run by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington.
“Those hours at club were complete bliss compared to the pressures at home,” Le said. Through the Boys & Girls organization, he found a guiding hand. He also spent time in the gym and game room, enrolled in the occasional cooking class and eventually took college prep courses and volunteered there.
“When you’re a kid, it’s easy to feel you don’t have much control in your life,” he said. “Gradually, I gained confidence and self-worth.”
The new 13,900-square-foot clubhouse will provide after-school activities to an estimated 150 children a day. The facility is at 500 Council Bluffs Way, smack in the middle of the 20-acre Skyline Crest subsidized housing complex. There, the per-capita income is around $21,000 a year.
The city’s Vancouver Heights neighborhood, home to the new clubhouse, was identified as an under-served area with no nearby affordable youth programming, according to the Boys & Girls Clubs. The organization estimates that there are about 1,000 elementary school students within a 1-mile radius of the clubhouse.
The facility is in the midst of a soft launch, allowing only families in the Skyline Crest complex to join starting today. Soon, they’ll invite families from Marshall and Harney elementary schools.
Once inside, children will have a lot of choices, said Gwen McNeir, grants and outcomes manager for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington.
A game room with pool, foosball and pingpong tables will help them learn social skills, such as losing gracefully and taking turns, McNeir said. In the technology center, they will learn how to safely cruise the Web. Cooking classes will teach them the fundamentals — to have clean hands, hold a knife with caution and be wary of hot surfaces — as well as apply lessons from school, such as fractions. There’s a gym with a basketball court, a space to do homework and a reading nook. The art room will allow kids to get creative, and its big sink, easy-to-clean countertops and outdoor patio means they can get messy, too.
The clubhouse represents the culmination of a two-year, $4.5 million capital campaign, according to a Boys & Girls Clubs press release. The project was made possible by a partnership with the Vancouver Housing Authority, and many generous people.
The “O.K.” in the name of the new clubhouse refers to two major donor couples, Steve and Jan Oliva and Lee and Connie Kearney, who have sponsored other clubhouses. On Sunday, the Olivas and Kearneys cut a big, blue ribbon and were presented with a mosaic that will hang in the clubhouse lobby in their honor.
Then it was time for the crowd, many of them project donors and partners, to tour the facility.
Le is headed to Washington State University in Pullman, where he plans to triple-major in computer science, business, and math — that subject he once found so daunting.
“I’ve seen myself blossom as a person,” he said during his speech, making sure to thank the donors. “I’m happy to call every single one of you family.”
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