Nearly 100 children returned to a refreshed Boys & Girls Club in Blaine on Monday afternoon after the summer break allowed volunteers to give the inside some much-needed TLC.
“This is our happy place,” read a sign above the front door as Aja Ruswick, club director, greeted the children during the grand reopening, which included a pizza party courtesy of Border Town Pizza.
“Hello. How was middle school?” Ruswick said to some of the youngsters as a little girl hugged her amid the growing chorus of children’s voices.
The city of Blaine owns the building, which the club leases. The Blaine location closes during summer and the children who are its members go to the Boys & Girls Club in Ferndale instead.
The renovation inside the Blaine clubhouse was a volunteer project led by Boys & Girls Club staff that included the efforts of Blaine City Council member Jiggy Sorrell as well as Bellingham-based Pen & Hammer General Contractors, which donated about $10,000 in labor and materials.
The collaboration gave the much-loved space on 8th Street a much-needed makeover that included repairing drywall, trim work and painting, using what David Campbell of Pen & Hammer called an “ocean of paint.”
“I don’t know if anybody’s noticed, but kids are a little hard on drywall,” Campbell, a father of five, said with a smile.
“It looks better and it creates, hopefully, a better learning experience for them,” he said, adding that the club’s youngsters would no longer be distracted by holes in the walls, peeling paint or previous water damage.
Sorrell, who is the city’s liaison to the club, said the renovation “helps with kids feeling like the community really cares about our youth,” and shows appreciation for the efforts of the Boys & Girls Club.
“They do so much with our youth, our school programs and making sure our kids have things to do in Blaine after school,” Sorrell said. “They’re a big help to our families in Blaine.”
As she waited for the club’s young members to get out of school and cross H Street with the help of a crossing guard, Virginia Gonzalez, the interim chief executive officer for Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County, said the work shows the city of Blaine’s commitment to the staff and creates pride in the clubhouse.
“That trickles down to the kids as well because when things are looking refreshed and updated, then there’s more care and attention,” she said, adding she was thankful to Sorrell and the city for devoting time and energy to the project.
The Blaine club is the most attended club in Whatcom County, with over 100 members who attend four to five days a week, according to Gonzalez.
And those members now have a clubhouse with a new bright interior of blue and white walls — and that matters.
“Sometimes when you come from an under-resourced household or area, you get used to things being run down. More attention, of course, is given to your basic needs, like food and stuff,” she said. “So when you get new shoes or a new paint coat on something, it feels like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have something new and beautiful.’”
Learn more about the Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County, including memberships, at whatcomclubs.org.
