PORT ANGELES — A $300,000 grant has boosted efforts to build a new Port Angeles clubhouse for Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.
Executive Director Mary Budke received word of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust award last Friday by phone from the trust’s Pauline Fong.
“I was just so thrilled,” Budke said Wednesday.
“It was just pure joy.
“Immediately after that, it was relief.”
The Murdock Trust awards grants to nonprofits in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
Months earlier, Fong traveled to the Port Angeles clubhouse, sat down, and listened to a three-hour presentation by Boys & Girls Clubs officials in the art room of the cramped quarters at 2620 S. Francis St. while children milled about, Budke recalled.
The grant award that Budke recently learned about, which capped an involved nine-month application process, pushes the funds available for the project to 75 percent of the $6.9 million needed to erect a new clubhouse.
The goal is to begin construction of the new clubhouse in April and complete it by early 2020.
To that end, there’s “a pretty good mix” of contributions and grants, which included $1 million from the state Department of Commerce, Budke said.
Organization officials hope to hear in the next two weeks if the project has been awarded a $25,000 Forest Foundation grant, Budke said.
“We’re moving into the community phase of the campaign, where we are asking for $25,000 gifts and under,” she said.
“We are just completing our major gift stage of $25,000 and above.”
Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed capital budget for 2019 also includes a proposed $500,000 state Department of Commerce grant for the project.
“We had to defend the grant to the panel, and we were awarded a position in the budget,” she said.
“I believe we were the only Boys and Girls Clubs up for consideration.
“It’s a very competitive grant process.”
The new facility will double as a community emergency shelter and double, as well, the capacity of the present facility.
The 7,000 square-foot building, which accommodates from 130-160 children, will be replaced by a 16,500-square-foot clubhouse for up to 300 children.
Budke said Wednesday that 60 families with 102 children are on the current waiting list, anxious to sign up for Boys & Girls Club activities — and take part in a free meals program — for $30 a year for families of all incomes.
Scholarships are available for families who can’t afford the fee.
The new clubhouse will be nearby, located on the same Peninsula Housing Authority property as the Authority’s major redevelopment project.
It will be more centrally located, directly off Lauridsen Boulevard and on Clallam Transit’s bus line between the Port Angeles School District’s Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools.
The Housing Authority has pitched in $700,000 for stormwater infrastucture from an county Opportunity Fund grant and is leasing the lot to the organization for $1 a year.
Housing Authority Executive Director Kay Kassinger said the fifth of seven buildings with 63 living units will be turned over Monday for occupancy by Housing Authority clients.
The sixth building will be ready by Dec. 15 and the seventh by Jan. 15, to complete Phase 1 of the redevelopment project, Kassinger said Wednesday.
Phase 1 will cost the Housing Authority more than $18 million, which includes redoing portions of Francis Street and Lopez and Whidby avenues for the city.
Kassinger said existing Housing Authority homes are being razed as new homes are built, but 67 of the original 100 will remain until more funding is available for total build-out, which was estimated at about $60 million in 2010.
Budke and Kassinger said both projects are timed well, since the Housing Authority will complete Phase 1 shortly before the Boys & Girls Club, which is leasing the Housing Authority site for $1 a year, starts its own project.
Timing will be of the essence at the beginning of 2020, when Budke said the old Port Angeles unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs will close on a Friday and open anew at its new location the following Monday.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
