Building Dedicated : Pacoima Revels in New Youth Club

The new $1.9-million Boys and Girls Club in Pacoima, the biggest and most modern recreation and community center in the northeast San Fernando Valley, was dedicated Thursday.

As laughing young people tossed a shower of blue-and-white balloons from the roof, local politicians and club officials snipped the ribbon to officially open the 26,000-square-foot center, which is expected to serve 2,500 youngsters from 7 to 17 years old.

The 27-room center, which contains 43 skylights, is the cornerstone in the development of the once-vacant intersection of Van Nuys and Glenoaks boulevards, now also the site of the Pacoima Plaza shopping center and the Pacoima Community Center.

“The adults in the community can now look to this corner as a source of pride. The entire area is redeveloped,” said Dona E. Thedford, associate director of the Boys and Girls Club. “And, for the young people, it is tremendously important. There is really no other recreational outlet for them in this community.”

The club’s opening capped more than 10 years of private fund raising, predominantly in the Valley, that collected more than $1 million. East Valley Councilman Howard Finn, who was at the dedication, said the privately raised money shows that “the youths in this community have a lot of friends.”

The rest of the construction funds came from federal block grants through the city’s Community Development Department.

The new center will double the operating costs of the club to $500,000 a year, Thedford said, most of which will have to be raised privately.

About one-third of the center’s operating budget has been provided by United Way and other grants. The center has requested more funds from United Way.

White and Blue

The structure, white stucco with a blue-tiled roof, replaces a cluster of three small, aging buildings set amid bars on a run-down commercial strip of Van Nuys Boulevard. As youth clubs closed in the ‘70s in San Fernando, North Hollywood and Van Nuys, the Pacoima center became the only Boys and Girls Club in the Valley.

“This center enhances Pacoima and the entire San Fernando Valley by being here,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda). “It’s going to make a difference to thousands of kids and is a recognition of our community.”

Now the youngsters, instead of using an asphalt court that once was a parking lot, have an air-conditioned gymnasium the size of those in high schools, with wood floors and skylights. For the first time, they have showers, locker rooms and a large athletic field.

Room for Activities

The club contains a crafts and wood shop, photography lab, spacious community room and kitchen. Club officials plan to reserve a room for a computer course as soon as more donations allow.

In the old quarters, the club served about 1,000 youths, chiefly from the northeast Valley.

Membership, which costs $12 a year and requires parents to attend an orientation meeting, is expected to more than double now, club officials said.