Pitch story leads to aid for Boys & Girls Club

The East Side Unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City is getting a boost with the help of the federal government, the city, a bank and media attention.

Last April, Pitch writer Nadia Pflaum documented the sad state of the Boys & Girls Club on Elmwood Avenue, a site that sits squarely in Kansas City’s most violent zip code. At the time, the Boys & Girls Clubs officials had a plan to transform a nearby building, the former Minute Circle community center, into a new club. But the $5.5-million project needed another $650,000 before work could proceed.

Ruben Alonso III, a man of action who works in the city’s Finance Department, read Pflaum’s story. Then he picked up a phone and called David A. Smith, the president of the Boys & Girls Clubs with an idea to use a federal tax-credit program to close the funding gap.