The Boys & Girls Club wants to be in Bayfield, representatives told town trustees on March 15.

Vaughn Morris, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club in Durango, said that club was started in 2007. Membership went from around 100 kids a year then to around 1,000 now. The membership is $15 a year. There’s also a club at the Southern Ute Indian Tribe in Ignacio.

“As a Bayfield resident, I really struggled with the fact that I haven’t been able to bring a Boys & Girls Club to Bayfield,” he said. It’s a safe place for kids to go after school, with positive role models. “We see a real spike of Bayfield kids in the summer, parents who work in Durango. Having positive role models, that’s the number one protective factor” for kids, he said.

Both the Pine River Library and Bayfield School District have proposed sites for a club. The library has 40 to 60 middle school kids show up every day after school, Morris said. The school district has a place designated for a club on its site plan for 40 acres south of the middle school.

Morris said, “We as a board try to prioritize. We’ll do a feasibility study in the next three months to get the pulse of what can be built and sustained.” The board has hired a consultant and partnered with a Region 9 Economic Development District block grant to do the study, he said. “There will be interviews with stakeholders to assess the need and the potential,” with results presented to the board in June.

The library location could happen in a year or year and a half, he said, versus the time it will take to develop the school property. The latter will depend on getting an $8.5 million state grant and voter approval for a bond issue of around $30 million. A Boys & Girls Club facility isn’t included in that funding.

County Clerk Tiffany Parker, a member of the Durango Boys & Girls Club board, said the club “has been a remarkable experience for my family and my kids. It’s not a day care. My kids chose to go there. My son is 16. He has gained leadership skills. ... We have full support to move something into Bayfield. There’s the need.”

The summer program in Durango includes arts and crafts, a computer lab, sports and leadership.

“The kids love being there,” Parker said. “Kids are safe. My son says the leader is like a second mom. If there’s an opportunity (in Bayfield), we want to jump on it for the benefit of the community.”