Youth Center in limbo in Valley Springs

Calaveras Enterprise/Dana Nichols

area because the organization doesn’t have enough money to buy adhesive to put down tile.

Won’t open when school resumes July 29

July 29 may be long and hot for some kids in Valley Springs.

That’s the first day back in class for children at the Valley Springs Elementary School. But class will end by early afternoon. The sun will still be high. Mom and dad won’t be home from work for hours. And the blue door will be closed.

In previous years, that blue door opened into the Valley Springs Youth Center, a place right next door to the school with wholesome snacks, pingpong and grownups who could help with everything from homework to learning geology.

The problem this year is money.

It takes somewhere between $25,000 and $40,000 to operate the center for a school year. And there’s only about $5,000 in the center’s account.

The Youth Center board of directors last month laid off Janice Bassett, the executive director and the only paid staffer.

Although she’s now looking for a new job, Bassett also continues to spend a lot of time at the center, making repairs and raising funds.

“I’m sure we are going to be able to open. I just don’t know when,” Bassett said.

Thursday, Bassett was brushing purple paint on a floor in the center’s office area. Rain had leaked into the building and damaged the old floor. Now the subfloor has been replaced, but the center doesn’t have money to spend $280 for adhesive required to lay tiles on the floor.

For years, the center has scraped by on the community’s charity. Most of the adults who tutor and teach there are volunteers. Most of the computers, books, furniture and crafts materials have been donated. Businesses even donated the work to put the current building in place and outfit it almost a decade ago.

Cash is required to pay utility bills. And really the center should have two paid staff rather than one, said Marti Crane, a long-time volunteer for the center who also formerly served on the center’s board.

“We need the community to help,” Crane said.

With only one paid staffer and a bare-bones budget of $25,000, the center spends an average of about $140 a day to keep the center operating during a 179-day school year. If 10 kids show up each day, that’s about $14 per kid, per day. If 15 kids show up, the price per kid per day drops under $10.

The elementary schoolchildren who come for a safe refuge don’t have $10 or $14 per day to spend. So the grownups are trying to find the money elsewhere.

Bassett said that a local trash hauling company has agreed to send a Calaveras Youth Center fundraising plea out with its bills. That could happen in late July or August, she said.

And she said her organization knows it needs to become more sophisticated about fundraising, in particular by making it easy for donors to make contributions using smart phones and computers. In fact, she said she’d welcome a volunteer with that expertise.

Both Crane and Bassett said that economic hard times and the growing needs of nonprofit organizations are putting the squeeze on donors, and that they know other nonprofit service agencies are also struggling.

“Everybody can’t afford to support everything,” Crane said.

Without that support, however, the Valley Springs Youth Center will become just another locked door.

“The community will determine when we reopen,” Bassett said.

To contact Valley Springs Youth Center, leave a message at 772-3922, email vsyouth@comcast.net or go to the center website at valleyspringsyouth.org.