Start-up cost for local Boys & Girls Club: $400k

A Boys & Girls Club will not exist in Bogalusa unless there is a firm commitment from the community.

That was the message Thomas Falgout, the vice president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Louisiana, delivered to a group of local residents who met at Louisiana Technical College Sullivan Campus Thursday.

And firm commitment has a price: $400,000.

Falgout said any start-up club must have the budget covered for it’s first two years, plus a plan on how funds will be raised for the third year.

“We’re not going to open a club unless you have that,” Falgout said, adding the annual budget for a club averages about $225,000.

Previously, proponents of a local club had said getting enough money for one-year’s budget would be enough to start a club.

But Boys & Girls Club officials want firm commitment from the community, and don’t want to see a club open and then close a year or two later, Falgout said. The Boys & Girls Club in Hammond recently closed due to a lack of commitment from that community.

“Communities all around the country want a Boys & Girls Club, but if the community cannot sustain it, it’s not going to work,” he said.

Falgout begun Thursday’s meeting with an overview of the Boys & Girls Club, an organization that serves 4.8 million children nationally and provides year-round after-school enrichment. Specifically, the club is concerned with education, child poverty, child obesity and high school dropouts.

“We have programs that address all of these things,” Falgout said.

Nearly 60 percent of Boys & Girls Club alumni say the club saved their life, either literally or by keeping them out of jail, Falgout said. And 90 percent of alumni go on to graduate from high school, he added.

“The education system can’t say that. The Boys & Girls Club can,” Falgout said.

A club, which serves children ages 6-18, requires a facility, full-time director, part-time staff, volunteers and a board of directors.

Currently, a steering committee, led by former Bogalusa City Councilman McClurie Sampson is in the process of trying to start a club in Bogalusa that would serve the entire parish.