I Don't Want to Wait



I Don’t Want to Wait


The Black Canyon Boys & Girls Club (BCBGC) became the big 2-0 in 2019. To celebrate this momentous occasion, the Club has partnered with the Montrose Daily Press on a special project; to bring to the readers of the Press an article each week to highlight various aspects of the Club and show the impact it has had in Montrose & Olathe. The readers will get insight from current parents, former Club kids, current Club kids, past Club staff, and more. So join us each week as we show why “Great Futures Start Here!”

Have you ever been on a waiting list before? Whether it be for stand by on a flight or to get your cable hooked up, it is an unfortunate norm we have come to associate with adulthood. However, these waiting list are usually pretty temporary; a couple hours, a few days, several weeks max. Not two years. Can you imagine waiting two years for anything? Well, unfortunately, that is a truth for several parents and kids in the Montrose community. For the Black Canyon Boys & Girls Club (BCBGC) Montrose unit, there is a two year waiting list. The facility we lease in Montrose now is a great facility but we are maxed out every day on the amount of kids we can provide services for; even with a gym, four classrooms, a tech lab, kitchen, and a small outdoor space, we can only serve around 120 kids each day.

We hate to have kids on any waiting list but especially for two years. A lot can happen in those two years and we are missing out on a prime time to help serve these kids and provide them with youth development services. That is all going to change now! The BCBGC is going to build its own permanent facility and just recently launched a capital campaign to do that. The new facility we are planning to build, on the corner of Niagara and 6700 Rd., will be larger to serve not only the kids on the waiting list now, but will help to prevent a waiting list from happening in the future. The facility we are planning to build will have a gym twice as large as the one we use now, we will have lounges for different age groups, a dedicated arts and crafts room, and an expanded tech lab. We will also have two dedicated classrooms for the younger members, one classroom dedicated to the teens, and a shared classroom that can have a divider wall. There will also be a recording room! Here the kids can practice band instruments, record music, podcasts, or videos. This room will be adjoined to the tech lab so certain computers are dedicated to those projects. We also have a quiet room where kids prone to over stimulation can go to refocus and escape the hustle and bustle. There will also be way more outdoor space for the kids to utilize for sports. There will also be more storage and administrative space for the staff to plan programming.

Want to know more about how you can help stop the two year wait and help great futures start here and now? Check out our capital project website page at https://www.bcbgc.org/im_in. I’m in, are you?

Bud Taylor is the Executive Director for the Black Canyon Boys & Girls Club (BCBGC) and had been for the past two years. Prior to that, he was a BCBGC kid, junior staff member, and board director. Feel free to contact Bud Taylor by e-mail at btaylor@bcbgc.org or visit the Club’s website for more information, www.bcbgc.org.