City will pursue Boys and Girls club grant
An artist rendering of the HUB.
The Columbia Falls City Council Monday night passed a resolution directing city manager Susan Nicosia to apply for the Community Development Block Grant for the new Glacier Country Boys and Girls Club HUB project.
If the grant is successful, the funds, up to $600,000, would be used to provide city sewer and water to the site.
The club has plans to build a new 24,000 square foot facility on vacant land next to St. Richard Catholic Church.
The club has an agreement to buy about three acres from the church.
About a half dozen people spoke in favor of the project and the grant during a public hearing in front of council.
The project has “the right leadership, the right purpose and is the right time,” said Columbia Falls librarian Tony Edmundson.
Edmundson said the library does what it can to help after school kids, but it just doesn’t have the resources.
The club currently runs its programs out of a former church on Fourth Avenue West. It serves about 60 K-6 kids and about 20 more junior and senior high school students, but it’s simply out of space, noted director Mandy Anderson.
Resident Andrea Getts said she supported the project.
“They have the community in mind,” she said. “It’s not just three or four hours a day for the kids.”
The facility will have a gym, classrooms and meeting rooms, a commercial kitchen and a host of other amenities. It could host senior citizens, community meetings, and will even have indoor pickleball. In short, it’s meant to be a true community center.
Getts noted that since Logan Health closed its community room on Nucleus, the community hasn’t had a place to meet.
The entire project is estimated to cost about $8 million, though $2 million would be for an endowment for the club.
Club Board President Jeri Moon, said she wished something like this was available when she was a single mom raising her children. It would have been easier to keep her kids out of trouble.
Columbia Falls Police Chief Clint Peters said he also endorsed the project as it could help with some of the issues the department is dealing with with younger people.
The vote in favor of the grant was unanimous.
“It’s my pleasure to have the ability to do this for the community,” Mayor Don Barnhart said.