Boys & Girls Club in Indio gears up for summer with renovations

The Boys and Girls Club in Indio will have some changes geared up for the busy summer season with a renovation of its oldest building. It’s a project that has been in the works for several years according to Quinton Egson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of the Coachella Valley.

The renovation will include a new education center, arts and activities room as well as staff offices. The facility according to Egson serves about 300 kids each day in the local community.

“The Boys and Girls club here in Indio are renovating one of their oldest buildings in order to better serve the needs of the youths in the area,” Egson said. “It’s about 50 years old and when I was a kid coming to this club, it’s nothing like it looked like. Kids are going to be so excited to have a new facility.”

KESQ & CBS Local 2’s Jeremy Chen was taken for a tour of the new facility Friday morning to get a sneak peak of the changes.

It’s been over 40 years since the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of the Coachella Valley entered the organization as a child. Egson said he’s excited to see the progress it has made over the years — serving the youth of the community.

Egson said, “”I hope the kids can find a place where they can be safe, where they can learn and they can grow.”

It’s a project several years in the making thanks to donations from the community. The renovations come just in time for the busy summer season when the facility serves around 300 kids a day. The Boys and Girls Club provides constructive educational programs for kids.

“The goal for us is to build kids, and if we do our part in building kids, then we don’t have to worry too much about fixing adults later,” Egson said.

One of those adults is Leslie Contreras who graduated second in her class at Desert Hot Springs High School this past spring.

“I didn’t really know English, so when I came to the club I got really in tune with who I was in my community and started learning English and really breaking out of my shell,” Contreras said.

CEO Egson added, “We’ve got some of the best lawyers that came out to the facility…tons of teachers, people who were leaders in the community — This place we build people and then in turn they go out and build a community.”

It’s a community Egson feels will benefit from people like Contreras.