Search under way for area Boys and Girls Club headquarters

The Girls and Boys Club in Houma is looking for adequate space to be able to offer a full-fledged program for the youth in Terrebonne Parish.

When the program first came to the community more than a decade ago, it served out of the West Houma Gymnasium location on Williams Avenue in Houma. It is one of six Boys and Girls Clubs in Southeast Louisiana.

The Houma-Terrebonne Boys and Girls Club closed its facility after completing 2006 summer programs. The local club serves approximately 225 children.

“We are very appreciative of the partnership with the West Houma gym, but it limited us to what we want to do with the program just by operating out of the small space we had,” said New Orleans Boys and Girls chapter President Bobby Smith. “It’s temporarily closed and we are not serving any kids right now. There are transitional things going on right now.”

While the program is in limbo, its participants are left looking for other options.

“I can’t tell you what the children are doing now that the center is closed,” he continued. “If I had to guess, they are probably going to the parks after school.”

Smith said the administrators for the program are looking for a facility where they can have a controlled environment. That way, they can focus their attention on the children, he said.

“Having control of our surroundings allows us to impact the children with consistency while we dedicate our time to the Boys and Girls Club,” the New Orleans chapter president said.

At the Williams facility, the students engaged in educational activities like tutorial and homework assistance programs. They were able to use the gymnasium whenever they wanted, but that’s not Smith’s vision for the program.

The program should offer what Smith calls a “youth development experience” where the staff works on the total character development of each child. The other space it limited the number of students the groups could serve. In a new site, they hope to attract more students to participants.

During the summer, the Williams based club partnered with the Mechanicville Gym and Dumas Auditorium programs in Houma to offer participants a more expansive developmental experience.

“Once the programs were over, we went back to the same routine at the West Houma gym site,” Smith said.

The Boys and Girls Club is trying to raise awareness in the community by engaging the students in a wide variety of programs. “We want the residents to see what the value a full-fledge program would bring to the Terrebonne are,” he explained.

Clubs in other cities deal head-on with the issues that effect youth and teenagers offering programs like gang, drug, and sex awareness. The Houma-Terrebonne Club has implemented a “Smart Moves” program that educates and urges children to remain abstinent.

The Smart Moves program has been recognized nationwide. This shows the insight that the Houma community brings to the Boys and Girls Club in general.

Smith said club officials are now meeting with parish government officials and Wayne Thibodeaux, executive director of Houma-Terrebonne Housing Authority, to find a new home for the after-school program.

“A true, full-fledged Boys and Girls Club would have to have 8,500 square feet where you can have a computer lab, an area for tutorial, a game room and an arts and crafts room,” he said, encouraging local agencies to become a part of the community program.

The ideal location would be a central site close to downtown Houma, which would allow children to use the club without having to travel out of Houma into another parish after school. Traditionally, clubs are located in areas with a greater need of assistance.

“Wayne has been an advocate for the Boys and Girls club since the beginning. He is one of the original advisory board members that help Houma get the Boys and Girls Club.” Smith explained. “He has offered a lot of options for our quest for a facility to house the Houma-Terrebonne club. He has such great passion in wanting to see us move on to the next level.”

If an empty location cannot be secured, Smith said he will seek a partnership with another agency that has extra space. “We would like to have our own facility,” he said.

In addition to adequate space, the Houma-Terrebonne Boys and Girls Club is looking for a new director. Former Houma-Terrebonne Boys and Girls Club director Cory Butler resigned several weeks ago to focus on a new opportunity.

Butler took a job as the principal at Schwartz Alternative High School in Jefferson Parish, fulfilling a life-long dream to become a school administrator, Smith said.

Local agencies that can offer space for the Boys and Girls Club can contact Smith at (504) 566-0707.