Upon opening my e-mail this morning, I was very excited to see the construction bids come in for the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center (thank you Will Bussard of OZ Architecture for your hand in this) and to know that as of January 9th, 2008, we will have our construction partner in place and the work will begin . . . . bring in the New Year.
As you all know from past blogs, this project means so much to all of us in the organization and to the Williams’ family and we certainly know it will have an amazingly positive impact on the young people who will be members of the Center. Particulary in the week leading up to the anniversary of Darrent’s death, it is extremely important for us to have this positive outlet to focus on and to know that something truly positive will happen in our community from a place of tragedy.
Ed Dwight, the sculptor who is working on the bronze of Darrent to be displayed outside the Teen Center entrance, has started the first casting and some of our kids from the Broncos Boys and Girls Club have been over to his studio to learn about the process. This is also very exciting.
One of the special features that we have honed in on for inside the Center is a wall mural that will highlight some of the works of Domonique Foxworth’s writing class as well as a very special tribute that our own Nate Jackson wrote in memory of Darrent last year. We really felt that this wall was a way in which to express the sentiments of the project, the special memories of Darrent, but also hope for the futures of these young people who will cast their individual marks on the Center.
Our office will be working diligently in the early part of 2008 to collaborate with Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver on some special programming at the new Teen Center that will hopefully be shared with the other Clubs in the Metro area. We had success with this type of model through Lynch’s Leaders two years ago and it really helped us expand our reach to children all over Denver.
Speaking of other Clubs, our office travelled to Brighton last week to visit one of the newest branches of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver–Shopneck. Zack Vigil who runs all of this Club’s sports programs was our special host. He did a great job introducing us to all the wonderful happenings at Shopneck and to the great kids who are so excited to have access to such a special place.
I really enjoyed reconnecting wtih young Alex who was one of our guests at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Shop With A Bronco. Alex shopped with our own Brandon Stokley and the two had a very special experience. Alex would very much like to see Brandon at the Shopneck branch in the offseason and I told him we would work on that. Happy New Year, Alex.
We can’t thank Zack enough for his time as we all really loved seeing this new Club whose director is Scott Hyde, a friend of our organization for some time. One neat feature was their Teen Center, which is the first of its kind in this community. It made us all very anxious for the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center to open . . . which should be early April.
Until next time, Happy New Year to all of you in Broncos Country.