Business

Holmen Boys and Girls Club project gets $200,000 check

Jake Erickson of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater La Crosse accepts a donation from La Crosse Community Foundation executive director Jamie Schloegel

Published

4 years ago

December 17, 2019

Brad Williams

A new Boys and Girls Club for Holmen gets a major gift from the La Crosse Community Foundation.

The club has accepted a $200,000 donation to help convert the former Festival Foods store at Holmen Square into a new community facility.

Festival Foods chairman Dave Skogen says he’s thankful that Ace Hardware turned down an offer to develop the old supermarket.

“This is what it was meant to be,” said Skogen, about the club plans. “This is the right location, the right size, right community.”

The foundation gift brings the Boys and Girls Clubs to within $1.2 million of the fundraising goal for building a Holmen club, which would be expanded to 40,000 square feet to include two gymnasiums.

Jake Erickson, the executive director of the La Crosse area Boys and Girls Clubs, says Holmen is the biggest school in the Mississippi conference, but the only one that doesn’t have its own after-school facility for kids.

Brad Williams

A native of Prairie du Chien, Brad graduated from UW - La Crosse and has worked in radio news for more than 30 years, mostly in the La Crosse area. He regularly covers local courts and city and county government. Brad produces the features "Yesterday in La Crosse" and "What's Buried on Brad's Desk." He also writes the website "Triviazoids," which finds odd connections between events that happen on a certain date, and he writes and performs with the local comedy group Heart of La Crosse. Brad been featured on several national TV programs because of his memory skills.