Future teen center named for longtime director
DELAND, Fla. (AP) — Naming rights for a new building often are reserved for those responsible for significant financial contributions to its construction.
The future teen center coming to the Lacey Family/Spring Hill Boys & Girls Club will bear the name of someone whose contribution to the club has been priceless.
For more than 20 years, Althea Ross-Chavers has put her time, energy and love into the club located in the same community in which she grew up.
“Who ever would have known this little Black girl growing up in Spring Hill would one day have her name on a building in Spring Hill?” Ross-Chavers said Wednesday during an interview at her club’s headquarters on South Adelle Avenue.
Even a month after learning the teen center would be called the Althea Ross-Chavers “The Beautiful” Teen Center, the club’s longtime director still finds it hard to believe.
“Then my kids were, like, ‘well, Miss Althea, why not?’”
For others who know Ross-Chavers and the impact she’s had on countless hearts and minds, no one else is more deserving.
Joe Hearn, the current president of the nonprofit’s board, said he was happy his fellow board members saw it that way, too.
“I’m grateful to our really dedicated board of directors,” Hearn, an award-winning event planner, said in a phone interview. “Everyone knows her, she just gives everything she has to those children and to that community in general.”
Joe Sullivan, the longtime chief professional officer of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Volusia/Flagler Counties, echoed that sentiment.
“I think this is a great way for us to pay tribute to her legacy,” Sullivan said in a phone interview. “She’s got kids that come back and see her all the time. She’s a tough, strong woman who’s saved and...