Boys & Girls Club moving to Collins school Neil H. Dempsey Staff - TopicsExpress

Boys & Girls Club moving to Collins school Neil H. Dempsey Staff Writer SALEM — After roughly 30 years of serving kids from its headquarters on Hawthorne Boulevard, the Boys & Girls Club is moving across town to Collins Middle School. “We’re really excited about it,” said Joanne Scott, the club’s executive director. “We are ready to move.” The move comes more than a decade after the club began looking to move out of its location at 13 Hawthorne Blvd., in the former St. Mary’s School next to Immaculate Conception Church. The property is owned by the Archdiocese of Boston, which earlier this year declared portions of the building unsafe, intensifying the club’s hunt for a new home. The move to Collins isn’t meant to be permanent, and Scott said the club would lease space there on a year-by-year basis. The current lease allows for exclusive use of five large classrooms, three offices and an art room. “Beyond that, we’re hoping to use some other facilities at the school, as restrictions allow,” Scott said, noting that the club is interested in the gym and cafeteria and would likely share them with other after-school programs currently in operation at Collins. “Once everybody’s schedule and requirements are known, it will be easier to figure that out.” Scott said she is pleased with the new digs, in part because they offer “easy access to administrators” and an opportunity to strengthen the club’s partnership with the school district. Being in the middle school will also help the club reach some of the kids who need its services most, she said. “It’s good that we’re in the middle school, because that’s typically where kids starting dropping out,” she said. Although the club’s new location will be farther from home for kids from the Point neighborhood, Scott said she’s investigating whether a bus or van might be employed to transport them to and from the club’s programs. “The Point is definitely our target population,” Scott said. “We don’t want to lose any of the kids that are coming from there; in fact, we want more.”