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As the tour moved from room to room, Boys & Girls Club CEO Rebecca Veium told the group what each space would become when it opens in September 2026.

“It’s amazing to see this building coming to life,” Veium said, addressing a small crowd of board members, project partners, and supporters.

For the past five and a half years, Veium has overseen a club bursting at the seams, with limited space, no playground, a makeshift art room that doubles as storage, and hallways crowded with backpacks. The new building, she said, represents not only growth but dignity.

“If you come to our current building at 4 p.m., you’ll see stuff everywhere,” Veium explained. “Kids tell us all the time, ‘I don’t have a space for my things.’ It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel welcoming. That’s all changing.”

The group walked through classrooms built to safely hold roughly 30 students --- double or triple the capacity of current rooms, Veium said. A feature emphasized in the build was safety. Veium said the safety of kids and staff was woven into nearly every part of the design, from interior evacuation routes to one of the most celebrated upgrades: individual bathrooms.

Instead of large multi-stall restrooms, the building features single-use facilities to reduce conflicts, bullying, and supervision challenges, issues the club sees far too often with groups of children.

“There are almost 15 bathrooms here,” Veium said. “It’s one of the features we’re most proud of.”

Another upgrade is the STEM lab, which will mirror a school science classroom and help students build on what they’re learning in school.

Perhaps the biggest reaction came when visitors entered the gym. The club’s current gym is simply a concrete floor covered with tiles. The new gym will be a full-sized hardwood court with retractable bleachers, a divider, scoreboards and enough room to host tournaments.

Just beyond the cafeteria, construction crews were preparing the site for a commercial kitchen; something the club has never had before. Veium said food insecurity is a constant challenge for families the club serves. About 80% of members come from low-income households, and many rely on the club for daily snacks.

Soon, those snacks will become full dinners, made in-house through the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program. Two weeks earlier, the club’s Thanksgiving meal served 144 children and families. For some, it was the only meal they’d had that day.

“One parent told us, ‘I didn’t know how I was going to feed my kids today,’” Veium shared. “Statements like that are not unusual.”

Near the front of the building, construction crews were buffing concrete in the future home of the Teen Center, a suite of rooms twice the size of the current teen space, complete with a room overlooking the river, a patio, private study rooms, and a demonstration kitchen.

“This allows us to separate middle schoolers and high schoolers,” Veium said. Teens regularly crowd into their current room, sometimes 15 to 17 at a time, with barely space to move. The Teen Center will not be childcare-licensed, allowing it to open its doors to all teens in the community for workforce development, financial literacy, and career programming, not just those enrolled in the Boys & Girls Club.

The building will also include showers and laundry near the entrance. Veium said the club routinely encounters teens who skip school because they lack access to clean clothes or a shower.

“This lets us partner with organizations like ECHO to give kids and community members access with proper screenings,” she said. She added that Beloit has partnerships to help community members with laundry and showers, but there is nothing similar in Janesville.

Near the entrance, an administrative wing will house staff offices, private parent meeting rooms, and a staff break room.

“When you’re working with high-need kids all day, you need a place to breathe,” Veium said. In the summertime in the current building, she said staff members routinely go outside to eat in their cars.

The facility will also feature a wellness room where students can take a break and calm down. Veium said the goal is to eventually have a mental health professional or wellness counselor on staff.

“Our kids are really, really struggling,” she said. “They live in fight-or-flight, and we spend so much of our time every day helping them navigate these big explosions of emotions or, on the other end, completely withdrawing as they try to escape situations they don’t know how to handle. What we would love is to eventually have someone on staff whose sole focus is working with kids in small groups, helping them develop those really necessary skills.”

Veium said the club has raised $13 million to bring the project to life and is working on additional funding to furnish the space.

“That’s what our final push is for, so we can fill these rooms and give our kids something great,” she said. “Our kids deserve stuff that’s not falling apart…they deserve the best. They deserve this space.”

Board member Steve Schumacher said the facility represents more than just a building; it’s a place to help kids change their lives.

“All those kids on the waiting list will be able to come here without us having to turn them away,” he said. “It’s hard for us not to be able to serve kids, so it’ll be a huge relief to welcome all of them, not just the ones who can get in the door.”

“The number of kids you can save here and the way you can change the direction of their lives in a real, positive way,” he added.

Jim and Rhonda Hartwig expressed excitement about the impact the facility could have on the community.

“I just see a great amount of potential for the community and for our kids,” Rhonda said. “It’s very heartwarming.”

Jim highlighted the potential for collaboration with other organizations.

“The partnerships they’re building with other services and agencies—that’s really where the potential comes in for the community,” he said.