Newly opened Boys & Girls clubhouse in Roseland an ‘investment’ in Santa Rosa community

Leading a tour of the newly opened Roseland Community Clubhouse, where rooms for studying, play and guidance are named for benefactors and purposes, Magali Telles stopped at one looking out over Sebastopol Road.

The west Santa Rosa neighborhood’s main artery bustled with food trucks and traffic, pedestrians and restaurants and markets, an elementary school and small businesses ranging from hair salons to florists to auto parts stores.

The room doesn’t have an official name yet, but Telles likes to think of it as “The Room With a View.” As vice president of Youth Impact for the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma-Marin, she was charged with opening the $17 million club this month.

“It’s a view of all the wonderful vibrant activity that happens there,” said Telles.

That view is a fitting stand in for what the new club offers: a vision of and for a vital neighborhood filled with aspirations and striving that for years was in many ways overlooked and under appreciated. Now, a 25,000 square-foot building, brightly themed in purple, teal, orange and green, has been built around the needs of Roseland’s youth.

“It's incredibly important because it's validation of who we are as people, of who this community is, of all the rich flavor and all of the exciting things that come with being part of Roseland culture,” said Telles. “I think it’s important for that to be celebrated on a daily basis in a way that's educational, in a way that is going to really kind of help propel us forward in any way possible.”

The club opened its doors June 5 to about 330 youth a day, ages 11 to 17 years old. It includes a full-size commercial kitchen, a teen center, a dance studio and an art and science/technology lab, among other amenities.

Officials say the new facility will allow the organization to serve 2,500 youth within a year, up from the 1,000 it currently serves in the Roseland neighborhood through four after-school programs.

The club emptied early Thursday, with youth relocating for the afternoon to the nearby Roseland Elementary School because it was a day for an official open house introduction to the club for donors, other supporters and interested community members.

"We need this because for years and years and years, there hasn't been an investment in this community. And now is the opportunity to actually turn that around,“ said Calum Weeks, policy director for Generation Housing, a North Bay housing research and advocacy group. ”This is an opportunity to really kind of turn the ship around and really invest in people that are part of our community.“

Across the street at Roseland Elementary School, where the Boys & Girls Club runs one of its neighborhood after-school programs, David Verduzco, 13, spoke about the new facility, where he would have been hanging out, probably in the gym, were it not for the adults milling around it.

What does the club mean to him?

“Love. They're like family to me. You know, everybody there is like a brother and sister and I just grew into the family,” Verduzco said.

Next to him, a friend, Nathalia Garcia, 14, added: “It tells me that I have a good community, a good, safe community where I am loved.”

For Melissa Hernandez, whose two teenage daughters, ages 15 and 13, now have a place to go during the days and after school, the club is a place that helps children grow up and “come into their personality.“

“It makes me feel really happy,” Hernandez said. “It's part of a second family to us. A lot of the kids don't have the resources and (the club) has a lot and they help them and they go beyond just helping them to making sure they get whatever they need. It's a great place.”

At the club, visitors played shuffleboard, pool, pingpong and Connect 4 and spoke about the new facility and what it means to Roseland and the broader community.

Kirstyne Lange, president of the NAACP Santa Rosa-Sonoma County Branch, said her organization is exploring a relationship with the club that could take in events “and the longer term goals, what we think will help us inform our youth groups.”

“This space is timely in that we're looking for opportunities to ensure that both our branch and community members are aware of the resources available to our youth and places that we can gather in, because we don't have those formally available to us all the time,” Lange said.

The new club could be an instructive example of how to also meet the needs of Black youth in the community, Lange said.

“I think this is a step toward that. I mean, everyone loves a good multicultural space, but one thing that we know is that often in our county that comes at the erasure of the needs of Black folks,” she added. “And so we are still going to continue on that pathway of asking for space dedicated for us, because we know that although our youth are in schools, that they're not able to fully be themselves in school.”

Funding for the project came from a variety of sources, both private and public donations, including $4 million in federal funds secured by U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. Sonoma County developer Bill Gallaher and his wife, Cindy Gallaher, contributed $5.5 million, including a donation by their company of all project management and overhead costs as well as engineering, architecture and design work.

Other funding sources include $3.5 million in New Market Tax Credits, $300,00 from First Five Sonoma County, $250,000 each from the Peter & Ginny Haas Fund, Redwood Credit Union and Bank of America, $1,450,000 from Sonoma County Vintners, $50,000 from Jackson Family Wines and a total of $2,750,000 from two anonymous donors.

Boys & Girls Club Chief Development Officer Michelle Heery said the club is raising the final $1.5 million needed for the project and hopes to have it completed by the time school starts in August.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jeremyhay