LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — The Boys and Girls Club of Lansing received a generous amount of money to continue its program of serving youth from ages 7 to 17.
According to Joseph Yang, Director of Operations Boys and Girls Club of Lansing, the nonprofit is an after school program, a youth development organization, and a ‘safe place’ for kids to be.
There are a variety of spaces for the youth to hang out, but one space in particular is being renovated with this grant money, the kitchen.
“We are so blessed to receive $105,000 from the city of Lansing, and the goal is to renovate our kitchen. We serve over 200 kids a day in our food program, and we serve out of a homestyle kitchen right now and are looking to turn it into a commercial style kitchen, so that we have more storage space and better capacity to cook for our kids and ability to serve more youth,” Yang said.
The Boys and Girls Club has kids that go to school in the morning and then attend their activities until about 8 pm
Yang said that food service plays a major role in the community they serve, and they need to continue being able to provide snacks as well as hot meals for the kids everyday.
According to Yang, he received information from a contractor that it will take about $350,000 for the kitchen renovation and how they envision it, and so with this initial funding they are about a third of the way there, and will now be able to start the process.
“Once the food program does get running, we are looking to hire additional staff to help in the kitchen because we would like to do more in-house cooking, and boast our nutrition program and to do nutrition education, in conjunction with feeding the children ,” Yang said.
Yang said that when the kids come to the space, they want to be able to get help with their homework, have fun with their friends, and get food in their tummies, so this grant will help the mission become stronger.
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