PHOTO BY LIAM KYLE

Boys and Girls Club at Walton School, 3409 Walton Avenue: Children engage in an art project at the Walton Boys and Girls Club. The club will be relocating to Joseph Gallagher Elementary School at W. 65^th and Franklin Boulevard in January of 2020.

Boys & Girls Clubs coming to Gallagher and Lincoln West

(Plain Press, January 2020) Kids ages 6-18 on the West Side will have two new places to go after school in January, when Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland relocates one Club and returns to Lincoln-West High School.

The Club now at Walton School will be relocating to Joseph M. Gallagher Elementary School, 6601 Franklin Blvd., where it anticipates having more space, a larger student population and the wraparound social, health and family services provided by the Say Yes to Education Cleveland initiative.

Lincoln-West, which is also a Say Yes school, will again have a Club Teen Center. About two years ago, BGCC merged the Lincoln-West Teen Center into its Club at Luis Munoz Marin School at 1701 Castle.

For membership information, visit http://www.clevekids.org/find-a-club/join-a-club/.

Ron Soeder, interim president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio, BGCC’s parent organization, said it made sense to move the Walton Club now because the school is scheduled to close at the end of this academic year. In addition, the services available under the Say Yes initiative will make both the Gallagher and Lincoln-West sites more attractive to families.

“We are truly excited about the opportunity to serve the kids and families at Gallagher,” Soeder said. “Walton has been one of our strongest clubs, and the same leadership that inspired so much loyalty there will now be at Gallagher. We think the neighborhood will welcome us.”

Walton Club staffer Natasha Arroyo will be the site director at Gallagher. Michael Cook, the former wraparound coordinator at Lincoln-West High School, will be the site director for the teen center. Both the Gallagher and Lincoln-West sites will open in January, although the exact dates are not known.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland provides safe, fun places for kids ages 6-18 after school at 13 locations throughout the city, focusing on healthy lifestyles, academic success and character development. Each day, an average of about 1,000 kids go to the Clubs. BGCC is a branch of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio, which also includes Clubs in Akron, Lorain County and Erie County.