CRESTVIEW — The Boys and Girls Club of the Emerald Coast announced that its Crestview club will close after the summer program.
A letter bearing the news was distributed to parents as they picked their children up after the July 7 weekday program, parent Lindsey McGriff said.
“They gave us the letter on July 7 and said services end on Aug. 9,” McGriff said. “They gave us zero options to find alternatives in a month.”
McGriff said like many parents who have children in the Allen Park-based program, she and her husband rely on the BGC’s sliding fee schedule to afford a quality childcare program for their two young children.
McGriff said Walker Elementary School’s $30 registration fee plus $30 each week will raise the family’s childcare expenses more than $100 a month above the $170 she and her husband currently pay. And that’s if they can get their kids into the school’s program.
YMCA BANKRUPTCY
The BGC arrived in Crestview in 2014 when the county YMCA went bankrupt, abruptly closing its Crestview after-school program.
It ran the Walker program until Walker, like other area elementary schools, opened its own after-school care program.
Emerald Coast Boys and Girls Club Chief Executive Officer Shervin Rassa said the club filled a need even though moving a program into Crestview wasn’t in the club’s plan at that time.
“We stepped in when the YMCA left,” Rassa said. “Our plan never was to open up services in Crestview at that point. Our plan was to grow strategically in the future but with the YMCA closing, we stepped in to take over the Walker program.”
Rassa said one of the reasons the GBC board decided to terminate the Crestview program was low attendance.
“We were serving about 15 kids a day,” Rassa said. “Attendance is higher now during the summer, but the decision was made before the summer.”
ALLEN PARK REC PROGRAM
Assistant Crestview Public Works director Carlos Jones said his department is making plans to take over operations of the Allen Park recreation building on Aug. 10.
“It will be kind of like what we do at the (Twin Hills Park) gymnasium,” Jones said. “People can home in and use the equipment.”
Jones said with school opening the day after the BGC program concludes, the city probably won’t be considering an after-school program other than providing recreational facilities.
“There are so many other options at the schools that weren’t there when the YMCA closed,” Rassa said.
OPTIONS
In addition to Walker, before- and after-school childcare is offered at Antioch, Bob Sikes and Riverside Elementary Schools. Southside Primary School does not list a childcare program on its website.
Still, McGriff said, not having a Boys and Girls Club in the county’s largest and fastest-growing community is “concerning.”
“It was a huge loss for the community when the YMCA closed, then to have this organization close is just as bad,” she said. “At no point has it been presented as a fill-in-the-gap program that would eventually close.”
Rassa said the BGC might return down the road.
“Hopefully as we grow strategically in the future we will be able to provide services in Crestview,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Boys & Girls Club closing Crestview program