New Boys & Girls Club to Open Monday

The painting is done, the basketball court gleams, and officials are gearing up for Monday’s opening of the new, 25,565-square-foot Simi Valley Boys & Girls Club.

The $2.5-million building boasts a full-size basketball court, an arts-and-crafts room and a games room complete with tables for Ping-Pong, pool, air hockey and foosball.

There are also a weight-training room, a catering kitchen and a learning center, where club staff will tutor students after school and during the summer.

The building is a vast improvement over the Boys & Girls Club’s old quarters in a clutch of undersized, ill-equipped buildings at the former Bellwood Elementary School, said Linda White, the club’s executive director.

“Enrollment is up. I think we’ve probably had a couple percent” increase since the ribbon cutting for the building on Monday, White said.

An orientation meeting for parents at 6 p.m. Tuesday should bring even more memberships, she said.

“We expect our summer program to have a waiting list, so if a parent is interested in the program, they need to get to one of our orientations,” White said. “Last year, we had 400 kids in it, so we anticipate it’s really going to grow.”

The club plans to offer new evening programs for teenagers from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Teens often were reluctant to attend night programs at the old Bellwood site, but the new building at 2850 Lemon Drive is far more popular, White said.

“They’re showing up at the door over there saying, ‘Can we come in? Can we come in?’ ” she said. “If we get huge numbers, we may go a little bit later” than 8 p.m.