Completed renovations lead to promising opportunities
The Armory Youth Center in Canonsburg will celebrate with a kickoff party from 7 to 8:30 p.m Tuesday for students in sixth through eighth grades. The event will have a foam slip ’n slide, bonfire and food.
Director of the Armory Youth Center JR Gardner and donor Bill Wilson stand in the finished gymnasium of the center. Wilson donated all new windows and labor for the center.
An employee from Specified Systems installs the windows at the youth center.
When JR Gardner took Christian student leaders for a retreat in downtown Pittsburgh in 2013 to meet with CEOs, professors and entrepreneurs living out a message, he challenged them to live out that message themselves.
Gardner, Canonsburg Ministry and Armory Youth Center director for Metro Pittsburgh Youth for Christ, was referring to Jeremiah 29:7, which reads, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord of it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
He didn’t just challenge the student leaders, but himself.
“My thought was that if I’m challenging students with this, then I have to challenge myself,” he said. “So, I decided at that retreat that I would go back to my community and walk through the streets. The first day that I was walking I came across a ‘For Sale’ sign and envisioned all kinds of amazing things that could happen.”
Now, after cosmetic changes in the lower level of the West College Street building totaling $50,000, the Armory Youth Center in Canonsburg will be fully functional by early next week.
The second phase of the project included repairing walls, waterproofing, painting, completing electrical work and installing a new restroom, carpet and windows. It accompanied the updated basketball court on the upper level.
“When I first walked through the building, the upstairs windows had holes in them with cardboard duct-taped to the windows,” said Gardner. “The structure is absolutely phenomenal, being that it was a former armory. I definitely envisioned what it could be.”
That vision was assisted by Bill Wilson, a North Strabane resident and president of Specified Systems Inc. of Canonsburg, who donated all of the windows for the facility. Workers for the company – established in 1992 and extending to Erie, Clarksburg, W.Va., Harrisburg and Columbus, Ohio – donated an entire day of free labor.
“We embrace these types of projects,” said Wilson. “Since we are based here in Canonsburg – and have a fabrication facility in Washington – it just made good sense for us to donate all of the gymnasium windows. When it came to phase two, we were in a position to help, and we opted to take care of the rest of the windows for them.”
The 18,000-square-foot building, erected in 1938, has hosted a campus life program for middle school students, fitness classes, opens gym and other programs since fall 2014.
Now, $450,000 later, after the purchase and renovation of the entire center, it will resume its Campus Life program in addition to beginning an after-school program and mentor program.
The mentor program will coincide with Mayor David Rhome’s Communities Moving Forward at a house donated to the organization at 216 Taylor Drive in Canonsburg.
The programs offered are designed not only to provide an outlet for youngsters in Canonsburg and to address drug problems in the county. Gardner cited census figures showing 60 percent of Canonsburg households with children 18 and younger are single-parent residences.
“We have a massive heroin and drug problem in Washington County,” said Wilson. “People don’t always want to address it or admit to it. Today, kids need a positive environment and something to do that is not idle time. We have to put positive influences back into our communities and create an environment where these kids are able to go. I see the work these organizations are doing and what they can attract here.”
Gardner wants the center to act similarly to the revolving door of his Canonsburg home, which hasn’t been limited to his wife and five children.
“You talk about a need right here in our community,” said Gardner. “Getting the mentor program off the ground is going to be pivotal – having a place where students can go instead of home to an empty house after school. To me, the end goal is to help our kids achieve in three ways: spiritually, academically and socially.”
When renovations are complete next week, the group plans to accommodate about 250 students on a weekly basis.
There also are plans for a sports and recreation program if more leaders become involved after the group’s informational meeting from 7 to 8 p.m. Sunday at the youth center.
“The ministry is too young to look down the road at things,” said Gardner. “We can just hope that what we are doing is making a difference in someone’s life. It’s been amazing to see everything come together. To have guys like Bill Wilson step forward in the community is the fuel that allows us to do the work.”
“You might not be able to save 1,000 kids, but you might be able to save 100,” said Wilson. “That’s 100 more that weren’t being saved before.”