La Conner Boys & Girls Club could shut down

Since 1999, La Conner’s working parents have depended on the Boys & Girls Club for a place to send their kids after school.

Conveniently located on the La Conner schools campus, right behind the administration building, the club serves 50 to 60 local elementary and middle school kids every afternoon.

That can all end in June. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Skagit County Board is scheduled to decide next Thursday whether to close the La Conner club for good at the end of this school year.

Besides La Conner, there are Boys & Girls clubs in Anacortes, Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley. Of the four, La Conner is the smallest and most heavily subsidized, said the clubs’ executive director Ron McHenry.

“This isn’t because we’re strapped for cash as an organization,” he said. Rather, it costs 50 percent more to serve a child in La Conner than a child in any of the other clubs. We have fewer kids — Mount Vernon serves around 130 per day — and the club must be fully staffed like the larger ones. Also, with less local financial support, the La Conner club is not self-supporting.

“This is in no way a reflection on the La Conner community,” McHenry said.

Not only is our community much smaller than the three other cities with thriving clubs, but there are fewer local benefactors.

At minimum, he said, the club needs to bring in $50,000 to break even. Presently, between contributions from the Town of La Conner, Swinomish Tribe, Kiwanis and other service groups and individuals, the club brings in about $20,000 yearly.

On Monday, McHenry and other club officials met with local leaders and residents in La Conner to discuss the problem.

The outcome of that meeting prompted a committee of local residents, Dick Nord, Jennifer Fix and Ric Henderson, to come up with a “sustainability plan” for the club over the next week, McHenry said.

Depending on the progress the committee makes by next Thursday, Oct. 22, McHenry said his recommendation to the board may be to wait until March to decide whether to pull the plug on La Conner.

Even so, unless the group can come up with a plan to raise another $30,000 each year, the La Conner club is on track to shut down in June, even if the final decision to do so is delayed until March.