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Restoring Acres Homes’ beacon of hope
After Hurricane Ike over 70 youth were displaced when The Salvation Army’s Garden City Boys & Girls Club was destroyed – now the agency is ready to rebuild

September 16, 2009 - The Salvation Army

To restore hope in the Garden City community, The Salvation Army is aiming towards a new $3 million Boys & Girls facility.

The playground built for Garden City by AARP in March 2008 was demolished by Hurricane Ike. The new facility will bring back joy to kids who called Garden City home.

For the last 40 years, The Salvation Army Garden City Boys & Girls Club has operated in the Garden City housing project in the Acres Homes community of north Houston. This area serves a low-income community with a dangerously high crime rate. With 75 percent of the youth served by The Salvation Army living in the housing project, children and parents have found the Club critical in offering an alternative, safe and nurturing place for children after school.

Garden City serves approximately 70 children daily during the school year and 100 children during The Salvation Army’s summer day camp program. In this neighborhood, 90 percent of the children served are minorities, 86 percent are on a reduced lunch program, and 49 percent have grandparents as their primary caregiver.

Unfortunately, when Hurricane Ike swept through last September, there was substantial damage left to the property. The mold problems were severe enough to leave the facility inoperable. Garden City has now been closed for one year, and the desperate need to rebuild in this underserved local community has not been overlooked by The Salvation Army.

Area Commander, Major Chris Flanagan believes the hope offered to the children from Garden City needs to be restored, as do many of the residents in the area.

Because there is currently no place for the displaced children to go after school, The Salvation Army has taken on the challenge of planning for a new $3 million facility to be located at West Montogermy and Gulf Bank Road. In fact, numerous community partners have also expressed interest in supporting this project. The plan is to close the purchase of the property at the end of this month.

Pending funding from local corporations and support from The Salvation Army’s donors, groundbreaking of The Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club is tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2010.