Oceanside CA— Just over a year ago, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Oceanside(BGCO) broke ground for their new Center for Innovation. Last week they official opened the 2,800-square-foot addition to the Townsite location, 401 Country Club Lane, which includes a Culinary Arts Teaching Kitchen, STREAM (Science, Technology, Research, Engineering, Arts and Math) Lab, and Performing Arts Center.

“We are so excited to be opening this Center for Innovation,” said Jodi Diamond, CEO of BGCO during the ribbon cutting ceremony. “It has been a long and winding journey but oh so worth it. We had a dream and the community helped us turn this dream into a reality. We want youth to gain skills they never would’ve received had they not entered our doors. The Center for Innovation will do just that and much more.”

“It’s such a pleasure to be able to offer our youth alternative opportunities to learn real life skills that they can use,” said Robert Botkin, BGCO Board Chair. “Not every kid going to school is going to wind up getting a four year degree. They need to be exposed to other opportunities. We are going to teach them about cooking and the hospitality industry and boy do we have lots of new restaurants here in Oceanside. Won’t it be nice to have our kids learn some of those skills.”

The Culinary Arts Teaching Kitchen will give teens a place to learn marketable job skills and valuable life skills. In addition, the state-of-the-art facility will provide a training ground for at-risk youth to learn culinary and hospitality skills.

The Performing Arts Center will provide a dedicated space for youth and ROAD’s members to engage in music, drama and dance programs, including rehearsal and performance space. It will be a place where they can explore and create, providing them a stepping stone to further high school arts education.
The STREAM Lab will be an interactive facility in which BGCO youth can experiment, try, fail and learn important problem solving skills that will serve them throughout their lives. BGCO recognized early on that our youth needed to be better prepared in STEM fields to develop the 21st-century skills to set them up for future success, and this space will provide just that and more.
For more information about the Boys and Girls Clubs of Oceanside please visit their website BGCOceanside.org or Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/BGCOside .