Donations Help Make Boys & Girls Club Dreams Come True
By Jeff Todd
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) - To understand how important the game room is inside a Boys and Girls club, you have to head to the Foosball table.
"Foosball is really a time-honored tradition," said Kaycee Headrick, the Executive Director of Boys and Girls Club of Larimer County. "This is really where friendships are built."
After a $20,000 renovation, the Fort Collins Boys and Girls Club game room has been transformed and now has two Foosball tables. It also has table tennis, air hockey, billiards, and more.
"This room promotes positive social interaction in a safe spot and it gets kids off the ground and moving. If you look around the room you don't see a lot of chairs or places for kids to sit because this is all about getting active," Headrick said.
The new game room was made possible with a donation from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. It's also part of the Boys and Girls Clubs Triple Play program addressing kids' mind, body and soul.
"I come here, my lifestyle at home isn't best. When I'm here it's amazing. It helps me get out of my headspace of home," said one club member.
"Just being here it makes me happy and I love it so much," said another.
The kids also helped in the design.
"We heard a lot about making the space really fun. We were really limited in the amount of tables we had before. So, what would end up happening is that not that many kids could be in this space," said Headrick. "This is about kids learning how to make friends, how to play fair so that's sportsmanship, that's teamwork. That's really what Triple Play is all about."
Jeff Todd joined the CBS4 team in 2011 covering the Western Slope in the Mountain Newsroom. Since 2015 he's been working across the Front Range in the Denver Headquarters. Follow him on Twitter @CBS4Jeff.