Boys and Girls Club seeking donations for pandemic adjustments

The Boys and Girls Club of Charlottetown will be back at full capacity starting in September, but it is looking for some help from the community to complete some changes it is making.

The club reopened May 25 after closing down when the pandemic struck in March, and has slowly been increasing its capacity.

The club typically has a long waiting list for places, but co-director Carly Levy said she is not sure what to expect in September.

"There's still a lot of uncertainty about sending kids back to a normal program, sending kids back to school," said Levy.

"The demand is there, but I think there's a lot of uncertainty about whether they want to jump back in with two feet."

Making adjustments

While the club is returning to full capacity, it is not returning to pre-pandemic normal.

Previously, the club was divided into different rooms — a gym, a media room, an arts room — but under pandemic conditions kids will be assigned one room and be required to stay there. The members in that room will be from the same school, to limit mixing and potential spread of COVID-19.

So now every room in the club is a multipurpose room. The gym is also being converted, so the club will be relying on getting outdoors for physical activity.

"It's really important for us at this point to make every room as similar as possible so that everybody has as close to the same experience as everybody else at the club," said Levy.

But the club doesn't have all the gear it needs to make all the rooms equal. They are short on Chromebooks, because they won't be able to share, and they don't have enough televisions for all the rooms.

So the club is looking for community donations. If you think you have something the Boys and Girls Club could use, you can call or send a message on Facebook

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