Teens get to help design, build their own space at Rosewood Boys and Girls Club
An outgrown teens’ space at the Rosewood Boys and Girls Club center soon will give way to not only more space, but to a learning and career exploration experience for the dozens of middle- and high schoolers who gather there every day.
Thanks to a financial gift by Norman and Gerry Sue Arnold, the center is getting a new addition that will be dedicated hangout space for teenagers. Just as special as the gift of the new space is the experience the teens will have in helping to design and construct the new building.
A partnership with Midlands Technical College and John Bowman Architecture and Design is allowing the teens to be hands-on in the process of designing the new construction.
“The kids are going to learn application of their education,” said Carter Clark, president of Boys and Girls Clubs of the Midlands. “It’s not some distant thing in the future. No, the kids are going to design and build and be a part of the construction process of their own space, and not just for them, but for the next generation that’s going to come up.”
More than 100 young people, including some 40 to 50 teens, visit the Rosewood center every day, Clark said, and as many as 400 come in a year. It offers them a safe place to play and socialize as well as build career development skills, he said.
“This place for me was a bridge,” said Brooks Harper, who first walked into the Rosewood Boys and Girls Club as a 9-year-old and now is chairman of the Boys and Girls Clubs Community Development Committee. “This place saw something in me before I could see it in myself, assuming I could do far more than I could ever dream possible.”
The Arnolds have been longtime beneficiaries of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Midlands. It’s a special cause to Norman Arnold, he said, because of the impact a similar club made on his father, Ben, when he was growing up in a rough part of New York.
Arnold approached the Boys and Girls Club several months ago, Clark said, to ask, “What else can I do?”
To honor the Arnolds’ ongoing commitment to supporting the organization, the new construction will be named the Norman Arnold Teen Center. Work will begin this summer on the design process, Clark said, and he hopes for construction to be complete by early next year.
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” Arnold said. “You should enjoy the things you give more than the things you receive.”
He said he hopes the children of the Boys and Girls Club will be inspired to one day give back to their community.
And he had one other request for the kids:
“The only thing I have to say to you is wear it out, so we can build another one.”
Reach Ellis at (803) 771-8307.
This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 1:21 PM with the headline "Teens get to help design, build their own space at Rosewood Boys and Girls Club."