Bayview Finishes Community Center

After five years of meetings, fundraising, digging and hammering, Bayview’s new community center is finally finished.

“We’ve paved the parking lot,” said center board member Hobart Jenkins Monday. “That was the last thing to do.”

The two-story, 5,000 square-foot building cost about $215,000 to build, plus more than $106,000 of donated labor. Local companies donated cash, lumber, gravel and paint. Contractors loaned their tractors, bulldozers and road graders.

To help pay the 10-year mortgage, organizers held a pledge drive, spaghetti feeds and dances. Fishing guides donated their time to give paid fishing seminars. A local garden club did the landscaping.

“There’s a real sense of community pride,” said Jenkins. “When you ask people if they’ll do something, and you’ve got a good plan, they just do it. This is volunteer city here.”

The building has a large upstairs meeting room, two classrooms and a large kitchen.

“We have everything from women’s groups to Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in there,” Jenkins said.

The center replaces a 1910 school building that served as a Bayview meeting place. The building, with holes in the floor and no insulation, was condemned in 1988.

, DataTimes