The re-opening celebration of the BCYF Gallivan Community Center in Mattapan will be held on Friday, September 7, at 2 p.m. This $3 million dollar, one-year renovation is a key part of Mayor Walsh’s $50 million dollar FY19-FY23 Capital Plan investment in BCYF facilities. All are welcome to attend the reopening celebration.

Upgrades included replacing the roof and gym floor, installing air conditioning in the gymnasium, upgrading the fire alarm system and emergency lighting, installing new storm water drainage, repaving the parking lot, installing a transfer switch for emergency generator connection, and upgrading power outlets and select lighting. Additional improvements were made to the bathrooms, and the exterior facade.

In addition to a $3 million dollar investment in the Gallivan Community Center, Mayor Walsh is investing $1.9 million dollars in an interior renovation of the BCYF Mattahunt. The Mayor is also investing in a kitchen upgrade at the Mildred Avenue K-8 School/BCYF Mildred Avenue Community Center in Mattapan.

Also on September 7, more than 200 volunteers from BCYF, Morgan Stanley and organizers from KaBoom! and the community will join together to transform an empty site into a kid-designed, state-of-the-art playground in just six hours at BCYF Gallivan Community Center. The design is based on kids’ drawings created at a special design event in July. The new playground – the 20th built by Morgan Stanley and KaBOOM! – will give 230 kids and their families in the community a fun place to play.

This playground is part of Morgan Stanley’s commitment to supporting healthy starts for children. Safe places to play are vital to that foundation and Morgan Stanley’s long-standing collaboration with KaBOOM! helps to ensure communities have great places to play for kids and families and creates spaces where kids’ potential is supported, nurtured, and celebrated.The playground will be finished just before the community center reopening event and its opening will also be celebrated on September 7. Volunteers are needed to help build the playground — you can sign up online.

• WHEN: Friday, September 7, 2 p.m. (ribbon cutting with Mayor Walsh)
• WHERE: BCYF Gallivan Community Center, 61 Woodruff Way, Mattapan

Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF) is the City of Boston’s largest youth and human service agency. BCYF operates 36 community centers in Boston that offer a variety of engaging and enriching programs for people of all ages created through community input and need. BCYF also oversees citywide programs including the nationally-recognized violence intervention and prevention Streetworker Program, the GIRLS Initiative, Camp Joy special needs program and many aquatic offerings.

The Block Party will feature a performance of Invisible: Imprints of Racism by Anna Meyer & Dancers / beheard.world in conjunction with Tread Stream and Dudley Square's Inner Sanctum. The City of Boston's Office of Housing Stability will be on hand to inform residents about their programs and services.

The event is free and open to the public, with the following scheduled activities:

2:30 PM     Community Speakers
3:00 PM     Inner City Sanctuary for the Arts
3:30 PM     Open Mic
4:30 PM     Barbeque Cook Out
5:00 PM     Performance: Invisible: Imprints of Racism

Stable Ground is an effort to address the complex relationship among chronic housing insecurity, its psychologically traumatic impact, and municipal housing policy through participatory community-based art and culture programming that is structured to inform the work of the City of Boston's Office of Housing Stability. Stable Ground is funded by a generous grant from The Kresge Foundation.