Boys & Girls Club proposal nearly done

Backers of a proposed Boys & Girls Club program in Post Falls are finalizing plans to lease property from the school district to build a 20,000-square-foot youth center.

Details were expected to be ironed out Friday and sent to the Post Falls School Board for consideration at a March meeting, said Boys & Girls Club President Cort Wilcox and schools Superintendent Jerry Keane.

“I think there’s pretty good movement,” Keane said.

Under the arrangement, the nonprofit youth program would lease 7 acres behind the Post Falls Library, on Mullan Avenue, for $1 a year, Wilcox said. The agreement is common among districts and officials of the national youth program across the country, officials said.

But acquiring land is only one hurdle for the project, expected to open in 2007 and serve some 200 children a day.

The next step will be to raise nearly $3 million in community donations to pay for construction. A daunting task at any time, it’s especially challenging now in the shadow of a $5 million fundraising campaign for the proposed Salvation Army Kroc Center in Coeur d’Alene.

Boys & Girls Club organizers have agreed to wait until late spring to launch their fund drive, after Salvation Army officials learn whether the proposed $65 million Kroc Center and endowment will come to the area, Wilcox said.

“We really don’t want to compete with the Kroc Center right now,” Wilcox said. “To confuse these issues wasn’t fair to the contributors.”

He acknowledged that the programs are competing for the same pool of community funds, although they’ll serve different purposes. A Boys & Girls Club Center would primarily serve disadvantaged youth from Kootenai County.

Wilcox added that the programs complement each other. The proposed aquatic center in the Kroc project could be used by Boys & Girls Club participants, he noted. Together, the two projects would provide comprehensive youth services.

Competition for local charitable dollars is growing, said Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem, a proponent of the Kroc plan. The Coeur d’Alene Library Foundation is seeking funds to support a $7.2 million construction project.

But community resources are expanding as well, Bloem noted.

“The pie is much bigger,” she said. “I look at all of these as opportunities with people that are passionate behind them. If they communicate that passion, they will be funded.”