By KREIG KOHL
Special to the PRESS
Announced on August 30, the City of Port Isabel has taken over control and operations of the Laguna Madre Youth Center. The city has had a partnership with the youth center for a few decades at this point, with the city assisting in transitioning it over from the Laguna Madre Boys and Girls Club.
The Youth Center’s board approached the city; and, according to Jared Hockema, City Manager for Port Isabel, “requested that we [the city] take it over so that we could maintain and expand the services being provided there.” The youth center has provided after school programs ranging from sports to tutoring and ensuring students of the Point Isabel Independent School District could learn to be responsible members of the community.
On the importance of the youth center and why the city agreed to take over, Hockema said, “It’s a vital service to the community. In order to have a good community, you have to have good quality of life, and to have good quality of life, you have to have things that enrich and improve people’s wellbeing and their enjoyment.” He continued on to praise the services the youth center provides, as being able to allow the community to be productive. “Because the parents are able to take the kids to the youth center, they’re able to work, earn money, and support their families, so it’s an important service to the community,” Hockema explained.
The city is planning to keep the programs the center provides as well as expand their programs. The city plans to ask the public for support in the bond election in the Fall of 2022 to get funding for renovating the building itself. The building was constructed in 1996 and hasn’t seen any updates in 26 years. Hockema said to this end, “We’re planning on that, assuming that we get the support of the public, we’ll be applying to Parks and Wildlife, and we’ll be investing approximately two million dollars into the facility, between what we have in the bond election and what we’ll be able to draw down from Parks and Wildlife.”
Hockema also said the city wants to expand the offers of the youth center to include, “more sports oriented programming. Whether it’s a basketball league, things like that, that could operate out of the youth center to provide more services to children.”
The youth center though is not solely run by Port Isabel, as it also sees assistance from South Padre Island and Laguna Vista. Hockema said to their support, “They’ve continued to be great partners with us. They’ve donated money to the youth center before and I imagine they’ll continue.”
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