We want you to know that we do plan to have basketball sometime this winter or whenever the city determines that is safe and allowed at the Walsh Center. We’re not likely to have full contact games/scrimmages for some time. We anticipate that we’d be allowed to run some type of skills and drills with limited amount of players at some point, before full games are allowed. We have no idea at this point, when that will be.

You may have heard that the Gavin Foundation is no longer running the Walsh Center. The Boston Center for Youth and Families (BCYF) has stepped in and will keep this valuable center open for the community. Andrea Flaherty and her staff from the L Street Bath House will be running programs and maintaining the Walsh Center building during the construction of the L Street bath house the next few years.

Kevin Lally and Sean Monahan met with Andrea and her supervisor Dan Monahan last week. They assured us of their full support for Gatey CYO and use of the Walsh Center to run our programs as well as other programs that benefit the community.

We are very grateful for the Gavin Foundation for stepping up 11 years ago to save the Walsh Center when it was scheduled to close. We couldn’t ask for anything more than the support we received from John McGahan and the Gavin Foundation. The Walsh Center has been invaluable to us and the South Boston Community-We shudder to think of what would have happened without the Gavin Foundation’s support of this valuable Community Center these past 11 years.

We are also grateful for the leadership of Ron “Cheech” Maciejewski, who was an outstanding resource to us and mentor, especially to the older teens at the center.
At our meeting with Andrea and Dan, we promised to keep communicating with each other and we will pass on any updates with you as they come available.

Sincerely,