Orange City, Iowa — An Orange City group is trying to raise funds for a new youth center.
According to Wendy Krommendyk of This & That Thrift Shop in Orange City, she started the group “Save a Youth OC” to address a need.
(as said) “I saw a need here when we moved here. My husband was born and raised in Orange City and we moved here about five years ago to take care of his parents. And you know, I worked with youth in Florida and we were foster parents and there’s always been a need to keep teens and preteens busy and occupied because if you know anything about kids, nine times out of ten, if you can keep them busy, you can keep them out of trouble. And in this community, there’s so much to do for the kids, but a lot of it costs money and not everybody has that. Two years ago I founded Save A Youth OC and thought well, how do we get the funds? And to me, a thrift shop is an easy answer and this will be able to… once the youth center’s open… It will be able to keep it running where the kids can always have something to eat, something to drink, and be able to you know, meet all the financial needs of the youth center.”
But, she says, a new opportunity has presented itself.
(as said) “There is a building downtown right in the center of downtown that has become available. That’s a commercial building. Right now we don’t have the funds saved to purchase it. One of my volunteers asked if I would mind if we started a GoFundMe and of course, why not? Maybe with GoFundMe we would be able to do that. It would be perfect for the kids that you know, it’s got a big room for a pool table, ping-pong table, it’s got a nice big deck, it’s got a kitchen, it’s got, you know, a couple different rooms where they could play games or do puzzles or crafts, a study room… It’s centrally located and it would be a good fit for what we’re looking at.”
Krommendyk says there is community support for their efforts.
(as said) “We’ve had so many people offer to volunteer once we get the youth center up and running and people support us in the thrift shop. We’ve got so many people donating every day and shopping there. So, you know just from talking to people in the community. I believe that everybody’s onboard and I’m just hoping and praying that we’ll be able to pull this together and change lives.”
If you’d like to help the effort, the This & That Thrift Shop is located just to the west of the Northwestern College Campus on Highway 10. The address is 317 Eighth Street Southwest. Click here for the gofundme page. You can also find out more at www.saveayouthoc.org. Krommendyk tells us if they miss the opportunity to buy the building, they will put the funds toward adding onto the thrift shop building and build the youth center right there on the thrift shop property.
