PROVIDENCE – The Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence will be getting a seven-figure assist from the state’s U.S. senators to breathe life into the nonprofit’s century-old clubhouse within the city.
The Boys & Girls Clubs, along with U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, D-R.I., announced Friday that the nonprofit will receive $2 million in federal funding to support the renovation of the organization’s Wanskuck Clubhouse. The funding, the Boys & Girls Clubs said, are from the 2023 fiscal year federal consolidated appropriations act.
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The Wanskuck Clubhouse – which was toured by club officials, Reed and Whitehouse on Friday – is close to 100 years old, making it both the largest and oldest of the nonprofit’s eight sites within the city. The facility provides before and after school child care services to seven neighborhood schools and offers a range of programs and open-door memberships for neighborhood children and teens. Because of the building’s age, only one-third of it is being used for club activities, the Boys & Girls Clubs said.
With the new funds, the nonprofit will make necessary improvements to the clubhouse. Amont them include a new workforce development innovation center that will offer industry certification programs, a state-of-the-art teen center and a new education center for young children. These changes, the organization said, will increase the clubhouse’s usage by nearly tenfold.
Boys & Girls Clubs CEO Nicole Dufresne said in a statement that this new federal funding is a “gamechanger” for the organization and a “significant investment” in local youths.
“It’s impossible to fully express our gratitude to Senator Reed and to Senator Whitehouse for what they’re helping to make possible,” Dufresne said. “Our work is all about increasing the number of children we serve and expanding college and career opportunities for our teens, propelling them toward a brighter future.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
