The doors are opening for Liberty County’s own Boys and Girls Club.
Parents and children attended opening day for the club, which is housed on the old Jordye Bacon Elementary School site, on February 2. The opening day included an orientation that served a handful of purposes, according to unit executive director Col. (ret.) Charles Branson.
“We are trying to grow this thing,” he said. “We are in our infancy stage — crawl, walk, run phase. We are in the crawl phase. We plan to walk and then be on the run here shortly.”
The orientation brought staff and parents and children together and allowed the club to accomplish a few other goals, including showing off the facilities to the adults and kids and to discuss the programs available.
“It is an opportunity for us to showcase all of the benevolence of the community, to allow folks to understand what we are trying to do for the children and provide another opportunity for Liberty County children,” Branson said. “There are many, many outstanding programs for kids.”
Parents and kids got a display of the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club’s robotics program as part of the orientation. There also will be sports and fitness programs, along with Power Hour and Triple Play, to stimulate the mind, body and soul, Branson said.
There is an arts and crafts room, and the club is working on a game room.
The club also will have a STREAM — science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, with reading and the arts added — emphasis.
“Every program brings a little something different,” Branson said. “And we have an afternoon program we hope will allow the children to flourish.”
The Boys and Girls Club, a unit of the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club in Savannah, has three buildings on the Bacon campus. It also has use of the school’s cafeteria, complete with a stage, and the gymnasium, starting in the afternoons. The Coastal Academy has use of the gym in the morning before the Boys and Girls Club kids begin arriving.
“It’s more than enough room to cover the 150 kids we have,” Branson said.
The stage also may set the stage for collaboration with the local high schools and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Branson said they could put on plays, and perhaps get their students school credit for taking part.
There are 12 classrooms, but as Branson pointed out to the parents and kids, it’s more than school work in those rooms.
“Kids don’t want to come here for another three hours of school,” he said.
The club is reaching out to churches, sororities and the school system for programs and Branson added they may approach the Extension Service and 4-H to bring in horticulture classes.
“We’ve got huge plans,” he said.
Branson also said he’d like to bring on sports programs such as those as the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Clubs have in Savannah — and they also want to look at developing other aspects of their kids through character, vocation and development skills.
“We want to provide a wide swath of opportunities for these children,” he said, “whether it’s academics, sports and fitness, science and STEM. We want to prep the kids to get ready to go to college, if they want to go to college. We want to prep the kids if they want to go into the workforce.”
The original opening date was set for January, but Branson wanted to push that back. The staff and the buildings weren’t ready, and he said he didn’t want to bring parents into something that still had a lot of work left to be done.
“We could have opened the doors but have parents say ‘that is horrible,’” he said. “Frank Callen is allowing us to do this the right way so we don’t have issues later on.”
Several officials with the Frank Callen club were on hand for the orientation, and Branson readily acknowledged the parent club’s assistance in getting the Liberty County unit up and running.
“They have provided the blueprint for us to follow. We are following that as close to perfection as we can,” he said. “They are with us every step of the way.”
