Abby Hoover
Managing Editor

The Don Bosco Centers are nearing completion on the renovation of their original community center in the Columbus Park Neighborhood.

The building at 526 Campbell was originally built in the historic Kansas City neighborhood in the late 1930s and named for Saint Don Bosco, a 19th-century Italian priest known for his caring spirit and dedication to children.
Throughout the 1940s and 50s, the community center was a gathering place for youth, seniors and families, with a variety of programming and resources.

In May 2018, a $3.2 million Capital Campaign was completed to raise money for the renovation project at the corner of Missouri and Campbell, across from Holy Rosary Catholic Church.

Liz Zini was brought on as director of the new community center in March 2019.

J.E. Dunn Construction was responsible for the original project in the late 1930’s, during which they donated the bricks used to construct the building. The company continued this legacy with the renovation project.

While it may have been cheaper to tear the building down and start from scratch, the history of the original center lives on through the physical structure, including pieces of the original gym floor, now used to display names of donors and other signs throughout the building.

The tri-level building was made handicap accessible with the addition of two chair lifts, one inside the main entrance and one at the back of the building.

These allow easier access to the top-floor gymnasium, named for donor Kent Sunderland from the Sunderland Foundation.

The new court is equipped with boundaries for basketball, volleyball and pickleball. With newly-exposed vaulted ceilings and a stage, the multi-functional gym will be available for events, workout classes and sports.
Over the years, the building has seen dances, celebrations, youth sports, movie nights, and has served as a daycare and English as a Second Language (ESL) school before sitting dormant for the past 10 years.

“Columbus Park saw a big change,” Zini said of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the transition to an ESL center. “Don Bosco’s kind of adapted to meet the needs in the neighborhood, so a lot of Vietamese families were resettled here through Don Bosco.”

While the building was being cleared out, Zini said they heard many fond memories from neighbors, and found pieces of the past like old bank deposit slips and hand-painted backdrops from plays performed at the community center.

Behind the stage there are two classrooms, restrooms and the second chair lift in what used to be a boxing ring. The classrooms will be used to expand the centers’ community education programming.

A sign of the times, Zini pointed out locked cages around the drinking fountain spouts to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

One of the classrooms will be used as a dedicated “Teen Center” to provide services for Northeast teens.

“We’re trying to make a one-stop shop for teens, like where you can come here and we can connect you with the different services that you need,” Zini said. “Don Bosco’s not an expert in teens. There are great organizations that are wonderful with what they do.”

The center has met with organizations like Boys and Girls Club of Kansas City, Mattie Rhodes Center, Westside Housing and Nourish KC about a future collaboration of resources.

The rooms will be available for community meetings and community education classes on crocheting, Italian, Medicare, improv, yoga, Zumba and belly dancing.

“There’s a lot of great things that are just really going to be for the people in this neighborhood that don’t utilize our senior center or don’t utilize our ESL school,” Zini said.

Down the back stairs, the commercial kitchen stands ready for use. With a walk-in refrigerator and freezer, and all the amenities of a restaurant kitchen, the space will be available for cooking classes, community meals, caterers, farmers market and food truck vendors.

The basement level is occupied by The Sewing Labs, which moved from a 1,000 square foot space to the center’s basement, which is about four times that. Classrooms and a hallway were torn out during renovations to make an open room.

The program teaches sewing on both industrial and domestic sewing machines toward employment and entrepreneurship, typically to individuals in at-risk situations, including some of Don Bosco’s ESL students, which made it a natural connection.

“Community is a huge part of what we do, so it just makes sense we’d be in the community center,” Sewing Labs Executive Director Eileen Bobowski said.

The Sewing Labs volunteers have been busy making cloth masks at home to donate during the pandemic, creating a drive-through system to distribute materials. They have donated over 40,600 masks to frontline workers and social service organizations so far.

“How we were founded, with Kelly [Wilson] and Lonnie [Vanderslice] losing everything and being in need of work, the same thing is happening right now,” Bobowski said. “There’s tons of people out of work, well, they could learn a life skill and we can help put them back to work by partnering with companies that are looking for sewists. It’s kind of, in a weird way, come full circle.”

Besides the expanded space, Bobowski said being part of such a rich and vibrant community is a huge bonus. One of the classes the organizations run together, Sewing as a Universal Language, has people from all over the world who bond over sewing.

Zini and Bobowski are excited to be part of the Columbus Park Third Friday Art Walk, collaborate with local artists, and welcome makers of all kinds into the space.

Although the community center’s grand opening was postponed due to COVID-19, a tour of the renovated building was given via Don Bosco Centers’ Facebook page.

Zini said the first step will be opening up the various spaces to rent, but classes and community events will not start until instructors, visitors and staff feel safe.

“We want to be careful, plus we want people to be comfortable to come in and do it,” Zini said. “A timeline, we don’t quite have that… eventually, perhaps we’ll hold a community ed class or two in the gym where people can social distance. To us, we can’t be too cautious.”

The revived community center is a little over a block away from Don Bosco Senior Center, 580 Campbell, which has continued its mission of feeding seniors despite being closed since March 13 due to COVID-19.

All Don Bosco Centers are working on COVID-19 preventative plans for opening when the time comes, including sanitizing stations, masks and social distancing.

Neighbors can sign up for an in-person tour of the new space on the center’s website, donbosco.org.