Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
DUSTIN ANDERSON, Boys and Girls Club Program Coordinator, meets with community members at the Ironwood Memorial Building on Monday to discuss establishing a club in Gogebic and Iron counties. From left are Anderson, Laurie Celeski, Ironwood, and city manager Scott Erickson.
IRONWOOD - Dustin Anderson, program coordinator of Boys and Girls Club of the Northland, met with community organizers Monday at the Ironwood Memorial Building to make progress toward establishing a club in Gogebic County and Iron County, Wis.
Anderson noted the group will use the Ironwood Memorial Building.
The matter will come before the Ironwood City Commission for action on Sept. 28 and the club wouldn't begin using the building until October of 2016.
All insurance will be covered by the group.
While addressing community members in attendance, Anderson said he's made local connections and suggested establishing the Memorial Building as the location.
"Dan VanderVelden is huge on this project," he said. "He was the first person to suggest the Memorial Building as the location. He thought it was a central location between Hurley and Wakefield."
Within the Memorial Building, Anderson said plans are to use the auditorium.
"We're looking at the auditorium as a multi-purpose room," he said. With the desired location established, Anderson said his next step is to look at the rough draft of facility agreement to see what he needs to put on there.
"We need to get our I's dotted and our Ts crossed," he said.
After talking with city manager Scott Erickson and other city organizers, Anderson said the club will be open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. during the summer and 3:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on school days.
For the operation budget, Anderson said the club afford about $150,000. With its budget, Anderson said it will hire two full-time staff members and two part-timers.
Compared to Ironwood, Anderson said Hurley has been harder to do business because of concerns of stealing members from other clubs.
"Hurley's been a bit more challenging, because there's been a a lot of resistance that we're going to take things away from the school and put organizations out of business.," he said. "That's not our goal."
After the meeting, Erickson said he is optimistic about the BGCA being at the Memorial Building.
"It will be a great addition to the community; they have great resources and programs for kids," he said. "I hope it works out and then we can have that partnership with them. It's a great facility and a great location. It's accessible from all counties."
