The Cobbs Creek community is invited this Wednesday, Dec. 7 to come see the recently opened West Philadelphia Boys & Girls Club, located at 5843-55 Catharine Street. Caring People Alliance is celebrating the grand opening of this long-awaited facility with a ribbon cutting followed by an indoor coat giveaway and mobile food pantry for the community.

Community members are invited to visit the mobile food pantry presented by The Print Foundation, Inc. and select a new children’s coat in the newly refitted gymnasium. The event kicks off at 3 p.m. and goes until 4:30.

The 25,000-square-foot Boys & Girls Club provides two floors of classrooms, a large multi-purpose room, and a gym with a pull-down screen and a professional basketball court. The entire building is handicapped accessible.

“We are very excited to bring this full-service, state-of-the-art facility to the community,” says Jerry Macdonald, president and CEO of Caring People Alliance. “It features an early learning center and after school programming. In the future, it will offer teen and senior programming.”

The original building was built in 1925 but burned down in 2006. The only remnant of the original building is a pillar in the entryway. Caring People Alliance purchased the new building in January 2021 with the intention of relocating its Mantua Boys & Girls Club.

“We spent more than 60 years in Mantua and watched the area gentrify,” says Macdonald. “We need to be where there is the most need for the type of life-changing services we provide. We moved to be closer to the families we serve.”

Caring People Alliance received a Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to cover $2 million of the costs for the building’s renovation.

For more information about this facility, go here.