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Highlands Today

Boys And Girls Club Location Already Filled

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: December 8, 2007

AVON PARK — Three weeks after the Boys and Girls Club's Avon Park branch opened at Memorial Field, the club is still getting a second portable ready, and is working on a deck to connect its two trailers.

But membership has already shot up well beyond what Executive Director Wally Randall predicted.

The branch's new location has 74 members, and 65 children can be found either studying or screaming, racing and playing around the two portables on any given weekday after school. That's slightly more than the number of kids at the club's main branch in Sebring.

"We were expecting 40. On the first day, close to 60 showed up," Randall said.

Area Director Woodraun Wright described a waiting list they had for parents trying to get their children in there, because the Avon Park branch is full.

If the revenue doesn't keep up with it, the influx of members might be a bit too good of a turnout, one board member suggested.

"We may have to limit them to 50 kids," said Nell Roberts, one of the board members for the Boys and Girls Club of Highlands County. "We may not be able to handle them until we can get our fundraising lined up. ... I don't know how we can afford 74 kids."

Randall said he is "not really looking at trying to limit the number" of children in the club. To physically sustain the membership, he said the club was going to perform more fundraisers, including a "golfathon" to raise the $80,000 they need for the fiscal year ending in September.

Either way, the parents say they're happy with the upgrade from its old spot with the Avon Park Housing Authority. Since the new location's opening, some of the parents have said they and their children found the new spot on Memorial Field to be wide open and safer.

"They like this one better," said Derrick Hawthorne, whose two sons were in the club when it was at the housing authority.

Hawthorne's 6-year-old daughter, Jah-coria, came out of the crowd of kids swarming the swing set at the playground as he talked from his car. As he saw his daughter run back to him from the swings, he said, "they couldn't do none of this over there (at the housing authority). You couldn't even play kickball."

A Boys And Girls Club In Lake Placid?

As the Avon Park branch is already booked, Randall spoke with the Lake Placid Noon Rotary Club Thursday afternoon and pitched the idea of starting another branch. Randall said he asked the Rotary members to help pick out a good site for the club, preferably near one of the schools or near the parks.

There are no solid timelines or plans, so will a new branch really arrive?

"Very, very likely in the future," Randall responded. "It just depends on how many years are involved in the future, whether it's next year or the one after."

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