LA HABRA : Renovated Boys Club Building to Open

The girls have lived it up. They have enjoyed central heating and air conditioning while the boys have roasted in summer and frozen in winter.

For four long years, the boys in La Habra Boys and Girls Club have suffered in a 30-year-old boys building, while just a few feet away the girls occupied their new quarters.

But on Nov. 15, the disparity ends, when the boys’ newly remodeled and expanded building is dedicated in a 12:30 p.m. ceremony.

When the building opened in 1955, the club was open to boys only. In 1975, girls were admitted into what then became the Boys and Girls Club. The facility was shared by boys and girls until 1985 when the girls moved one door west into a new building.

A total of $325,000 has been spent to install heating and air conditioning along with new floors, ceilings, skylights and doors.

With the addition of new rooms, the boys building will now contain 18,500 square feet. The largest addition is a teen center, next to an expanded physical fitness center and the gymnasium. The girls’ building measures 14,000 square feet, making the total complex one of the largest boys and girls clubs on the West Coast, according to club Director Dick Guthrie.

The club has more than 2,000 members, almost half of whom are girls, Guthrie said. Fifty-two percent of the members come from single-parent families and 70% from low-income families. About half are minorities, he said.

The annual budget is $434,000. Local donations and fund-raising activities generate about 80% of that and United Way provides most of the balance. Members pay annual dues of $1.50.