LaRosa Clubhouse in McKeesport closing Dec. 1
By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
After 75 years of providing services to McKeesport area youths, the Boys & Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania is closing the LaRosa of McKeesport Clubhouse.
In a prepared statement, the Boys & Girls Club said the LaRosa Club will merge with its Duquesne clubhouses effective Dec. 1. McKeesport area youths are being encouraged to participate in programming at the BGCWPA Orchard Park Clubhouse at 938 Chestnut St. in Duquesne.
“Based on an assessment of current opportunities for after-school care, the determination was made to direct resources to our operations in Duquesne,” BGCWPA said. “Boys & Girls Clubs of Western PA will offer free transportation to students who have been members of the LaRosa program so they can attend the Duquesne program, should they choose and be provided with scholarships to attend the after-school program through the partnership with BGCWPA and Allegheny Department of Human Services.”
The organization said that “75 years ago, Sam LaRosa started the Boys’ Club of McKeesport in an effort to keep boys in McKeesport engaged in positive activities and over the years the club has worked with hundreds of children to continue this legacy.”
“BGCWPA is committed to ensuring Mr. LaRosa’s vision lives on through our other programs and services and looks forward to expanding that vision into the future,” BGCWPA said.
McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko, in a Nov. 18 letter to BGCWPA President Lisa Abel-Palmieri, said he’s in “utter disbelief and disappointment.”
“It is extremely disheartening to receive word of your organization’s decision at a time when there is such a great need for service among the children in our community,” Cherepko wrote, adding that LaRosa has provided “positive life-learning experiences” to youths for decades, and is an “after-school safe-haven where children can enjoy sports activities, meals, tutoring, and extra-curricular programming that pertains to their unique strengths and interests.”
“There has been no time in our nation’s history in which children have been asked to navigate their lives with as many obstacles as they have today — poverty, food insecurity, single-parent households, grandparents raising grandchildren, and now the uncertainty and anxiety brought on by COVID,” Cherepko wrote. “It seems to me that the Boys & Girls Clubs, at the corporate level, are embracing the unfortunate trend of cutting funds and resources where they are needed most.”
BGCWPA did not say what is planned for the future of the LaRosa Clubhouse building and property.
Cherepko has heard the plan is to sell the property, which is located on Ravine Street. He questions whether doing so would be a breach of contract.
“It is my understanding that you are looking to sell the LaRosa Club, and you feel that as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, you must sell it at a fair market value. Please understand that as a municipal entity that has received building donations from other nonprofit organizations, we at the City of McKeesport know this to be false,” he wrote. “In addition to that, I would like you to understand that more than $300,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development saved this club from becoming a condemned structure and a liability, rather than an asset.”
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