This Just In

Community rallies against closing of Boys and Girls Club

Citywatch

By MATTHEW JERZYK | February 21, 2007

In October 2004, 17-year-old William Lamont Thomas, surrounded by elected officials, and community and business leaders, highlighted the launching of a GTECH-sponsored computer lab at the South Side Boys & Girls Club.

Yet by July 2006, with no prior warning, the club’s doors were closed. Citing water damage, the club’s board gave no indication to parents like Wrenele Theme, Thomas’s mother, that it would stay closed longer than, at most, a few weeks.

Months later, with the new computers missing and the Boys & Girls Club still closed, Theme received terrible news: her son had been seriously assaulted at the Providence Place Mall, as a result of a long-time East Side-South Side rivalry. Wounded, Thomas told his mom, “You know I wouldn’t have been hanging out at the Mall if the club were still open.”

Theme shared this story this during a community march and rally this past Saturday afternoon against the club’s closing. More than 75 participants, including Providence Mayor David Cicilline, Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts, Council President Peter Mancini, and Councilman Luis Aponte, who represents the affected neighborhood, took part.

Theme faults the club’s board for the closing and for what she calls a lack of communication.

Cicilline sounded a similar theme. He announced at the rally that he recently met with board president Robert Brooks, a partner in the law firm of Adler Pollock & Sheehan, and highlighted the importance of the board in partnering with the community to chart the club’s future. Cicilline also said the City will move many of the club’s programs to nearby schools and recreation centers as a short-term solution.

In response to concerns raised by RI ACORN, Brooks wrote that it will cost $600,000 to repair and renovate the club. The board, however, has denied community members, who are willing to raise money and to offer construction services, access to the club and to its books. This could be because of a desire by the board to sell the club property, to the tune of $4 million, and relocate the club to the nearby Meeting Street School campus (whose CEO, John Kelly, sat on the club board until last week).

One elected official made the salient point that the club will face difficulty in raising money from, and offering services to, a community that it has largely enraged — as with the problems faced by the Providence Public Library.

Enraged was certainly the theme of the day at this sunny Saturday afternoon rally. Emotional stories from parents and children accompanied chants of “Save Our Club” and “Open the Doors, Open the Books, Open the Board.”

Dewayne “Boo” Hackney, a leader of Save Our Club Kids (SOCK), told the crowd how he was born across the street from the club and could name the families living in every nearby house. “I will die for this club,” Hackney bellowed. “That’s how important this club is to me and to our community.” Hackney asserted that the community’s efforts to re-open the club will only grow stronger in the next few weeks.

Topics: This Just In , Politics, Local Politics, John Kelly, More

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