New Boys & Girls Club opening in Southern Highlands

By Nikki Villoria

Monday, May 23, 2011 | 1:55 a.m.

Children in the Southern Highlands neighborhood will soon have a new place to call their own: a $6 million Boys & Girls Club, funded by the neighborhood’s developer and its charitable organization.

With a grand opening scheduled for late next month, the Southern Highlands Boys & Girls Club will offer youth activities, including character and leadership development, education and career development, health and life skills, arts programs and sports, fitness and recreation programs.

It will also be a fun and safe place for neighborhood teens and children to hang out, said Ken Rubeli, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Henderson.

The 24,000-square-foot facility has been under construction for about a year in the upper-class neighborhood in the southwest valley.

The community, the Southern Highlands Charitable Foundation, and the neighborhood’s developer, Olympia Companies, banded together to raise the $6 million for the project.

Rubeli said it was the determination of those in the community who made the project possible.

“It’s pretty cool because even in a broken economy when times are tough, the community has really rallied together around this effort to build a remarkable facility for the kids,” he said.

With an initial new membership list forming solely by word of mouth, the new clubhouse has more than 100 members so far, and that number continues to grow each week.

An annual membership for the new facility is $20 and is open to children between the ages of 6 and 18.

“Our memberships are the most affordable option for any type of youth activity out there, and we’ll never turn any kid away for economic reasons whatsoever,” Rubeli said.

The timing of its opening is fortuitous, as this is the first year that there will not be year-round schooling for the Clark County School District students who live nearby. The Boys & Girls Club will offer summertime programs for an expected 250 children a day in the summer months.

The new facility will include a full-sized gymnasium; a game room, which will include foosball, pool tables and Ping-Pong; a full computer lab; an art and cultural center; a teen area; a cafeteria; and outdoor barbecue space.

One of the summer programs will combine arts and crafts, digital design and cultural learning to give children a broader experience with the arts, said Bart McFadden, the senior unit director for the new facility.

“It’s going to have an international theme. They will have a country a week...from around the world and in here, they will do a lot of the arts, the culture, some songs and dance from each of the countries.”

They will have access to computers to create graphic design work.

The new facility will accommodate teens by providing them with their own section called The Club,which will have its own private entrance. The teen center will include a big-screen television and a separate Mac computer lab.

The club will offer a basketball league and plans additional sports leagues down the road. It will also offer transportation from area schools to the club.

The new facility will be open during the summer from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday and will host sports leagues on Saturdays. During the school year, hours will be from the time school is over until 7 to 9 p.m.

For more information, call 702-534-0504 or visit bgchenderson.org.