Expanded Arlington Boys & Girls Club includes new teen center

Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 18, 2017

ARLINGTON — The teen center wasn’t officially open, but there was no keeping them out.

A lively beat came from the speakers and the overhead dance-floor style lights were set to blue and green “Seahawks mode” Tuesday. One boy sprawled on a black couch and played a racing game on the large television while a few girls worked on a welcome message for the giant blackboard. The chalk, and one girl’s fingernail polish, glowed under blacklights. There also was a DJ booth in one corner of the teen area, a popcorn machine in another, and three game tables — pool, foosball and ping pong — spread in the center of the room.

Work just wrapped up on an expansion of the Arlington Boys &Girls Club, which serves more than 2,000 children from Arlington, Stanwood, Marysville and Darrington. It’s part of the Stilly Valley Youth Project, an effort to add more opportunities and safe spaces for young people. The expansion was a $2.3 million project, with most of the funding coming from the state and more than $350,000 raised so far from donors.

A dedication for the club and for the $600,000 overhaul of nearby ballfields at Bill Quake Memorial Park, where the Little League plays, is planned for Saturday. It’s open to the public, and it’s on game day, so organizers expect a crowd.

At the fields, artificial turf was installed in time for practices this spring and paved handicapped access was added for spectators, along with fencing and other upgrades.

In the club, the teen center isn’t the only addition. A new gym-and-a-half have been set up for basketball and volleyball. Earlier this week, a dozen kids played there, sports balls bouncing loudly off the shiny floor. The floor in the club’s old gym is being redone and the rest of the building has been updated, as well, with a new computer lab, flooring, paint, furniture and landscaping.

“It’s like when you add on to your house and you look at the rest of it and realize what else needs to be done,” said Bill Tsoukalas, executive director of the Boys &Girls Clubs of Snohomish County. “The building has not been abused, but it’s had a lot of use since 1992 when we opened it.”

Bill Kinney, director of the Arlington club, has worked there since it opened in its current location at 18513 59th Ave NE. He remembers the club before then, too. As a kid, he went to the first club started in downtown Arlington in the 1970s. His dad, Cal Kinney, led fundraising efforts to build the current club. Bill Kinney agreed to help his dad put in pool tables before it opened. He’s still there 26 years later, and says the recent expansion was needed as more families move to North Snohomish County.

“This is just going to allow us to reach so many more kids,” he said. “It was tough because we did so much with younger kids, but we couldn’t do as much for the teens.”

Novalee St. Onge, a sophomore at Lakewood High School, and Trinity Bowles, in sixth grade at Haller Middle School, are thrilled that teens have their own space at the club. It was getting crowded in rooms full of elementary school students. With the new center, they think more of their classmates might join them at the club.

“I like the futuristic look that it has, the electronics, the cool new technology we’re getting,” said Bowles, who plays volleyball and likes to karaoke, another feature in the teen center.

They noted that the furniture is teen-sized rather than for little kids, and there’s no “Dora the Explorer overload” on television or on the T-shirts and backpacks of people in the room. There are places to talk, play games, do homework or relax.

“It actually brings people together in our own place,” St. Onge said. “It’s like, if you have siblings at home, you don’t want to come here and be overwhelmed, too.”

The only flaw in all of the updates that they’ve noticed so far is one that is easily fixed. The shiny floor of the new gym hasn’t been worn in yet, and it can be a little sticky on your clothes when you try to slide, or slick against your tennis shoes when you run, they said.

It’s like a new pair of shoes, the teens said. You have to break it in. The kids at the club are up to the task.

Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.

Stilly Valley Youth Project celebration

11 a.m. Saturday, outside near the Arlington Boys &Girls Club and Bill Quake Memorial Park