It has been more than two years now since the Salvation Army announced that it had picked Dudley Street to be the future home to a sprawling new community center. The Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center– as it will be known – promises to truly transform a forlorn stretch of Dudley between Dorchester’s Uphams Corner and the Roxbury line.
Most of the money needed to build the 90,000-square -foot center comes from Mrs. Kroc, the widow of the man who started the McDonald’s fast food chain. She bequeathed $1.5 billion to the Salvation Army to build community centers in cities across the country. In 2006, the Reporter traveled to California to visit the first such Kroc Center, in San Diego. If replicated properly here in Dorchester, the Kroc Center on Dudley would no doubt become the most expansive state-of-the-art facility of its kind in Boston.
But, a condition of Kroc’s gift is that the Salvation Army lead a local effort to raise $30 million to help pay for the construction. So far, the effort has generated $10 million.
Last week, a newly formed committee of Boston philanthropists and business leaders convened a reception to launch what the Salvation Army has termed as “the public phase” of the money drive. Chaired by Sovereign Bank’s New England CEO John Hamill, the leadership gifts committee includes Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative leader John Barros, Suffolk Construction chief John Fish, and Edmund Kelly, the president and CEO of Liberty Mutual. Mayor Tom Menino serves as the group’s honorary chair.
It is hard to overstate the impact that the facility will have on this corner of our neighborhood, which is densely populated – some 58,000 people live within the one-mile radius of the site, according to the Salvation Army. The Dudley area, however, lacks adequate access to recreational opportunities and structured programming.
And, while community groups like DSNI have helped the Dudley-Uphams neighborhood to make great strides in recent years, the need for a full-service community center has long gone unmet. DSNI, among others, has wisely embraced the concept of welcoming in the Salvation Army, putting aside notions of “turf” and focusing on meeting the needs of a community that has long been underserved. The good news is that the Dudley area – through many years of organizing and community building – is primed and ready for such an investment.
The two-floor Kroc Center – which will serve all ages – will include a gymnasium and pool, a fitness center, and space for worship and the performing arts. It will also house services such as a food pantry, a heat-assistance office and other outreach programs aimed at assisting the city’s needy.
The group of potential donors that gathered at the BC Club last Wednesday evening to review the Kroc plans is charged with raising $20 million to move the project from the drawing board to the construction phase. We are grateful to the men and women who are stepping up to the plate for this cause. Those considering a gift to this effort should know that the investment made into this project will be one that will bear fruit for generations to come. Dudley Street has earned this opportunity. The time is now to make the Kroc Center on Dudley a reality.
