Lifting the Community
New facility at Drake University headlines Boys and Girls Club expansion
The centerpiece of a $19 million expansion of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa system in Greater Des Moines had its roots in a couple of discussions between Drake University President Marty Martin and longtime philanthropist Suzie Glazer Burt.
Martin had recently been announced as the latest Drake president in January 2015 when he got a call from Burt that lasted about 20 minutes.
“He asked what was on my mind, what would make me excited,” Burt said in an interview.
She told Martin her dream was to build a Boys & Girls Club on the campus of Drake University. “He instantly said, ‘That’s brilliant!’
“I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He said, ‘We’re going to do this.’ ”
Burt’s grandfather, Ellis Levitt, had co-founded the area’s original Boys Club in an old east-side grocery store before the organization morphed into today’s more inclusive version. The clubs help fill a gap in education and nutrition, offering life skills training, tutoring, mentoring and food to students when school is out.
Burt’s mother, Maddie Levitt, was a legend at Drake University, which named the Old Main-area sidewalk on which she routinely parked her yellow Volkswagen Beetle “Maddie Levitt Way.” At various times, she was a Drake volunteer, a board member and special assistant to the president for development.
Burt’s father, Ed Glazer, also was on Drake’s board, and later, Burt was, too.
Months later, Burt and Martin had lunch at Jesse’s Embers, a longtime steak place on Ingersoll Avenue.
“I asked what it would take to make the Boys and Girls Club happen,” Martin said in an interview. “She started crying.”
Burt had her written proposal with her. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Burt told Martin through the tears.
“I just burst out hysterically crying when he said, ‘We’re going to do this,’ ” Burt said.
“He called me later that afternoon and said, ‘I’m all in. Drake is all in. We need to bring this to fruition,’ ” Burt said. “It was his vision, along with mine.”
That led to a tour of area Boys & Girls Clubs and the recent groundbreaking for the Gregory and Suzie Glazer Burt Boys and Girls Club at Drake, only the third such club to be built on a private university campus in the country. Drake will share operating expenses.
Gregory Burt died earlier this year. Suzie Glazer Burt splits her time between Des Moines and La Quinta, Calif. The couple made a lead gift for the project, and also supported the Shivers Basketball Practice Facility across Forest Avenue from the future club site.
It’s the latest chapter in a long family history of supporting Drake — though none of the benefactors attended the school.
“My grandfather was given an honorary doctorate. My mother was given an honorary doctorate, though no one in our family every attended Drake,” Burt said.
Why support Drake and the club? “The most important thing in your life is your education,” she said. “Your education is the one thing that no one can take away from you.
“The biggest reason to have a club at Drake is because it’s going to be a community club. We’re going to not only serve one of the most challenged communities within our Drake campus, but we’re going to bring together kindergarten through 12 and all of our families.”
Said Martin: “Our vision is that once these students step on campus for Boys & Girls Club, they will leave with a diploma from Drake.”
That 22,000-square-foot building on nearly 2 acres of land provided by Drake at the southwest corner of 25th Street and Forest Avenue is part of a broader $18.8 million plan to build several new buildings to expand Boys & Girls Club services at Drake and at several other Des Moines school campuses. Shive-Hattery designed the structure. Weitz Co. is the general contractor.
The work will increase the number of students served to 3,300 from 1,971 and will add 25 to 40 new jobs to the current 100 positions, CEO Jodie Warth said.
The headquarters east of East High School will be remodeled for a new East Club, and a club will be added at Studebaker Elementary School, too. The Ross Club at Moore Elementary and the McCombs Club at McCombs Middle School will be expanded.
The local Boys & Girls Club operation provides after-school and summertime services to students.
Warth said the Drake facility will be the first in Greater Des Moines to offer services to children at all grade levels in one place. It will include a basketball court and a large play area. Martin said the university may use the facilities at times, and professors will be among those leading sessions for the students.
The facility could present a practicum site for those in physical education and athletics, and the music room will help collaborations with Drake’s music programs, Martin added. The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center also may be involved.
“Drake students may wait in line to volunteer” to serve dinner and to provide other services, Martin said. Greek chapters may offer to help.
“We are totally committed to being a part of the community,” Martin said. “It is an advantage to all involved.”
Warth said the 54-year-old organization operates five Des Moines club sites that serve as many as 550 students a day. A membership costs $10, and no one is turned away for lack of funds.
A full yearly cycle includes 990 hours of programming, much of it designed to “break the cycle of poverty,” Warth said. The clubs are located at Hiatt, Carver, McCombs, Meredith and Moore schools in the Des Moines system because students in those areas need the help the most, Warth said. The clubs offer tutoring, homework help and lessons in health and nutrition, leadership, life skills, community impact, and sports and fitness. Students are fed on-site and get food to take home for weekends.
In an area that has had problems with dropout numbers, 98 percent of students who attend the clubs graduate on time, Warth said.
The new Drake club will be directly south across Forest from the Shivers Basketball Practice Facility that the Burts also supported financially.
The university will own the building and lease it to the club for $1 a year. It will be surrounded by a wrought-iron fence.
“We are leveraging this project to benefit the neighborhood and ourselves,” Martin said. “We are trying to be an anchor institution for the Drake neighborhood.
“We are thankful it will be kindergarten through 12th grade. By the time the kids spend that much time on campus, they may think about going to Drake” for university studies, Martin said.
Besides, he added, “The kids running and screaming will be nice background noise.”
Martin said the facility will provide a safe, secure spot for youths, which should help families in the area. Programs include tutoring in life skills.
As summer approached, the Ellis Levitt Boys & Girls Club at Carver Elementary School enrolled 300 youths. On June 7, some of the 100 or so who had been coming regularly were playing a bean bag version of dodgeball in the gym, while others were making snakes out of Popsicle sticks and various art supplies. A room over, another group was learning about music on iPads.
“This is the biggest site,” said Abbey Barrow, coordinator of resource development and communication. It also is the most recent version of the club that Ellis Levitt formed many years ago.
Now, the whole network is growing.