SOFIA MONTAGNA
On Tuesday, June 17th, city council members and community leaders gathered to celebrate the progress made towards efforts to transform the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens into the largest Boys and Girls Club in the country. Speakers included New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, CEO of the Variety Boys & Girls Club Costa Constantinides, and New York City Council members Tiffany Caban and Julie Won.
The current clubhouse was built in 1955, located on 21 St. & 30th Road in Astoria, is 27,000 square feet, with a pool, gym, theatre, a teaching kitchen, maker space and a half-dozen classrooms. The club provides afterschool programs, predominantly free of charge, for 4,000 kids a year. In the past few years, the city council has given the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens $7.5 million in capital funding to help them transform their clubhouse. Construction for this $290M project is scheduled to begin at the end of the year.
When renovations are complete, the 120,000-square-foot club will include the first planetarium in Queens, a six-lane pool, a 200-seat theater, a 1,000-seat arena, a top-notch Bio Bus lab, and 236 units of housing. Of those 236 units of housing, 69 units will be set aside for kids aging out of foster care. To move youth to the ‘next’ level, club officials said the non-profit incubator and retail space on 21st Street will be part of a club program for our teen ‘club kids’ to take entrepreneurship to the next level.
The club will have the capacity to serve 16,000 kids annually. “Just to give you an idea of scope; statewide, there are only about 65,000 young people who attend Boys and Girls Clubs,” Constantinides commented. “That means, in the entirety of New York State, one out of four young people who walk through a door at a Boys and Girls Club will be walking through a boys club right here in Queens.”
Costa Constantinides says they are ready to break ground later this year.
Furthermore, Constantinides said, “Young people are going to be able to come in for free because we’re a free after-school program. They’re going to get a hot meal, they’re going to get help with their homework and through Power Hour, and then they’re going to be able to chase their dreams and their passions.”
The Variety Boys and Girls Club is $5 million away from its goal in its capital campaign. Constantinides says that only 10% of the project is public money. Raising the remaining $5 million needed will require a combination of both private and public funding from a variety of sources.
“When we invest in places like this, we are planting the seeds of success for generations of families,” Adrienne Adams said.
Adrienne Adams tells event attendees, “We are planting the seeds of success for generations of families.”
Councilwoman Tiffany Caban told event attendees, “It is all about opportunity, right? And opportunity is what this project embodies, an opportunity for every child, no matter their interests, no matter their ability, no matter what they are experiencing at home. For me, that is what the work is about.”
Councilwoman Julie Won added, “Costa truly understands that real safety and real community comes from making sure that our children and our youth have somewhere to go that is safe, and understanding how we can’t have income barriers for activities like Little Rock.”
From left to right: Councilwoman Tiffany Caban, Costa Constantinides, Adrienne Adams, and Bishop Mitchell Taylor. Constantinides and Adams are holding up gifts the kids sent for the speakers at the event.
