Push is on to raise money for gym

Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007

Push is on to raise money for gym

Germantown Boys and Girls Club has grown and is ready for more space

by Chay Rao | Staff Writer

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Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette

Boys and Girls Club member Khari Robinson, 12, of Silver Spring walks through the crowd at Thursday’s fundraiser as a Washington Redskins cheerleader rouses spirits.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of the Greater Washington-Maryland Region launched another push last week to raise money for a gym at its Germantown site.

The ‘‘Dining with the Stars” event in Bethesda Thursday night boasted several local sports greats with former Washington Redskins Charles Mann as master of ceremonies and Art Monk and Gary Clark notable attendees. But the real stars of the night were the young members of the Boys and Girls Clubs, according to Mark Avallone, the volunteer board president of the Maryland region.

‘‘Those kids have a choice every day,” Avallone said. ‘‘They choose to come into the club and do the right things. That’s why we called the event ‘Dining with the Stars.’”

Those who use attend the Germantown club could really use a gym. The clubhouse constructed in 2002 has reached capacity. The board has raised a little less than half of the approximately $3 million needed to fund construction.

‘‘We have always had the plan to have a gym on the [Germantown] site,” Avallone said. ‘‘We cannot begin construction until we have the funding, and we have made an all-out effort in 2007 to get it. We are ahead of the curve.”

Already, state and county officials have indicated support for the project, according to Avallone. Yet, what is needed is awaking the private sector to the needs that the Germantown Boys and Girls clubs fulfill.

‘‘The three sources have to come together,” Avallone said. ‘‘The state and county realize that we fill a need, but they also need to see that the community supports a project like this. Thursday night was a way to reach out to the private sector. These kinds of events generate excitement and enthusiasm for the project.”

Avallone indicated that private pledges of financial support were made among the 300 attendees, and that corporate support was bolstered as well. Harvest Bank, which had already pledged funds towards the construction of the gym, gave an additional $10,000 on Thursday. As the vote for funding from the state draws nearer, Avallone feels optimistic.

‘‘We have a great delegation from [Montgomery] County that is behind the project, and Thursday’s event helped us close some more of the gap. This is the year that we close [the gap] or come close to what we need for construction.”

However, the event was not a one-time thing. Expect many more opportunities to ‘‘Dine with the Stars” even after the goal of a new gym in Germantown is realized.

‘‘We are going to make this an annual event,” Avallone said. ‘‘We want to keep awareness up that a place like this exists. It fills a need for our kids.”