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The club will be located at the Dewey Hunter Center in LaFollette
By Charlotte Underwood
LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF)- Monday marked a momentous occasion in Campbell County with the announcement of a Boys and Girls Club being established. The club will be located at the Dewey Hunter Center in LaFollette and should be up and running before the 2025-26 school year begins.
Campbell County’s Club will become the 26th Boys and Girls Club of the Tennessee Valley.
Campbell County General Sessions Judge Bill Jones, along with board members from the CC Boys & Girls Club and representatives from the Tennessee Valley Boys and Girls Clubs held a press conference at the Dewey Hunter Center at 1:30pm on Monday.
“This is a huge day for us, we have been working for over a year and we will be opening a Boys and Girls Club in Campbell County, we started a board a year ago and we have been working this whole time and I’m glad to announce that in September of last month that the Tennessee Valley Boys and Girls Club that covers Knox and surrounding counties, they unanimously voted to add us as the next club, we will be their 26th club,” Jones said.
The Dewey Hunter Center would be the “first location” and “depending on fundraising”, the club will open either sometime in the summer or at the start of the fall semester. Local board members are working on establishing the club.
Jones introduced Campbell County’s Boys and Girls Club board members at the event, which included Brandon Johnson, Bill Thompson, Chris Thomas, John Snodderly, Jamie Wheeler, Rayma Daugherty, and Rae Lawson.
“These people have worked tirelessly to make this happen and it has been great working with them,” Jones said.
He also thanked the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tennessee Valley for “all their help in the process” and said Campbell County “was grateful for their support” and “excited to work with them and be a part of them.”
Bart McFadden, the CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley, spoke at the event.
“Our mission is to inspire and enable all young people, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens and that’s what we seek to do in the 25 clubs that Bill referenced. Just as a point of information, we do serve kids in Knox County, but also in Blount, Anderson, Louden and Claiborne Counties, so it is a natural fit for us to be partnered with the community here in Campbell County,” McFadden said.
He spoke briefly about the key principles that the organization operates on.
“Number one, we meet the needs of kids, whatever those needs are in a community, we seek to meet the needs of kids with good programs, good people and connectivity, next, is that we connect with the community around us. Today, you all being here is the first step in our organization really connecting deeply with this Campbell County community. And last, but not least, we like to say very consistently we change lives and we can prove it and we do that through the work we do each and every day with kids programmatically, through the relationships they build with their peers and staff and then ultimately providing them opportunities that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise that can really be life altering in a very positive way,” McFadden said.
He said community support was paramount in getting the club going.
“We need your support; we want to make sure that opportunities for our kids are accessible regardless of a family’s ability to pay for those experiences and that’s where we raise dollars. We raise dollars in local communities to provide the staff and to provide the opportunities that kids need to be successful,” McFadden said.
Naomi Asher will be leading fundraising efforts here locally in Campbell County. She has been with the Boys and Girls Club for a little over six months. She previously served as the director of United Way in Anderson County and served Campbell County as well.
Establishing a Boys and Girls Club for the county has been a “high priority” for some time now, according to Jones, who said the club would impact the community tremendously.
According to organizers, instead of having kids out on the streets or in unsafe situations, Boys and Girls Clubs are “safe spaces where kids can learn and grow.”
McFadden said the Boys and Girls Club wanted to” partner with the community individually and collectively to make sure the kids of the community have what they need to be successful long-term.”
McFadden also thanked board members of the Campbell County Boys and Girls Club.
“I want to thank the board; it always starts with a group of committed volunteers, it starts with a group of people that care about their community enough to push, to change something, to bring something to bear, and you all are doing that. We’ve seen that in Claiborne County over the last few years, we went from one club, to now we have three there, and we know that this will be successful and we’re going to make it happen for our kids.”
According to Jones, establishing the club has been a “lot of work to this point” and “a lot of work is ahead in the next year.”
“We’ll be looking forward to working with the community to help us make this happen and our board. We are going to have some events coming up and we will be making announcements about that soon,” Jones said.
(WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED 10/22/2024-6AM)