Jacob Morgan, 11, at his home in Sagamore Village on October 31. Morgan and his sister were regulars at the Boys and Girls Club of Sagamore Village and were very upset when it suddenly closed. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

For years, Anna and Jacob Morgan knew what they would do after school.

Jacob, 11, got off the bus and walked to a large white building in Portland’s Sagamore Village. It was only a five-minute walk from his mother and grandmother’s houses. Her sister Anna, 10, was walking there from Rowe Elementary School. This was the Sagamore Village club of the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Maine.

They did crafts, played soccer, and sometimes even went on field trips. They received a meal and a snack each afternoon. They went ice skating in the winter and sailing in the summer. Jacob and Anna were eligible for scholarships from the club that allowed them both to attend sleepover summer camps this summer.

But in August, the Boys and Girls Club announced the closure of that facility, as well as another in Riverton Park.

“When I found out I was sad, angry, confused and I had a lot of emotions,” Jacob said.

“Pretty sad,” Anna said.

Flyers were distributed around the village of Sagamore announcing the closure just before the start of the school year, but they did not reach Kayla Theriault, 31, the mother of Jacob and Anna. She heard about it from neighbors, who told her the program was closing due to a lack of funding.

Kayla Theriault and her children, Jacob Morgan, 11, and Anna Morgan, 10, at their home in Sagamore Village, Portland. Two Boys and Girls Club locations recently closed, one in Sagamore Village and one in Riverton, both low-income developments. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

But Brian Elowe, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Maine, said funding isn’t the reason.

“The decision was based on fairness and access. The sites we have are limited in terms of space,” he said. “We decided they could benefit from much deeper and broader programming by transporting them to the Cumberland Avenue facility.” »

Elowe said one staff member was made redundant following the closure, but the other four employees at those clubs were offered work at the larger city center venue, although not all of them were not accepted new positions.

Thériault and his children are not interested in the larger program. They appreciated the small size and proximity of the old one.

“The kids there were people they knew from the neighborhood, they knew the staff there for years,” Thériault said.

“It felt like a safe place,” Jacob said.

Plus, Thériault doesn’t drive, so sending her kids to a program where she couldn’t reach them in case of a problem scared her. Jacob suffers from asthma and sometimes struggles with his emotions. He was sometimes called to come to the old club when he was having a bad day, but if he was at a program on Cumberland Avenue, that wouldn’t be possible.

“If someone is having a moment that needs mom’s attention, I can’t get there, it makes me nervous,” she said.

Kayla Thériault and her daughter Anna Morgan, 10, hold hands in their home in Sagamore Village. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Thériault grew up in the village of Sagamore and attended the Cumberland Avenue club as a child. But she had bad experiences with the bus dropping her off irregularly, sometimes at home and other times at the bus stop. One day, she found herself alone outside, in the middle of winter. It was dark and her parents were at the bus stop, but she had been dropped off at her locked house. His mother stopped sending him after that. Although she says she has been assured that the buses are running better now, she doesn’t want to risk her children having a bad experience as well.

The children also toured the larger location on Cumberland Avenue. They don’t feel as comfortable there as in the small club in their neighborhood, to which they were accustomed.

“It’s just a lot different, it’s a lot scarier. There are a lot of people who talk loudly all the time,” Jacob said.

Brian Frost, executive director of the Portland Housing Authority, which manages both Sagamore Village and Riverton, said he was also sorry to see the programs close as well. He stressed that PHA had no part in the decision. He said PHA pays $18,000 a year to set up programming at its properties. He said he was informed of the closure shortly before the families.

“I think the scheduling, once we get (to Cumberland Avenue), is better, but there is an element of having to get on a bus. When you have a program on site, it’s more accessible to the kids on site,” Frost said.

PHA continues to operate study centers at both properties, Jacob and Anna sometimes visit the study center.

Jacob Morgan, 11, walks out of the house to join his sister Anna Morgan, 10, and his mother, Kayla Theriault, in their front yard. Since their local Boys and Girls Club closed, they have been spending more time at home. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

“They’re trying to do some of the things the club was doing, but they can’t do everything. It’s really more of a place to study and do schoolwork,” Thériault said.

Now, without the club, the children spend more time at home.

“They are homebodies. Either they go to the study center or they are at home. When they’re home, they’re mostly indoors,” Thériault said.

She tries to get them involved in more extracurricular activities like Girl Scouts and Odyssey of the Mind, but the club’s closing has left a void in their lives. Children say they feel less connected to the friends and staff they knew at the club because they no longer see them. Some children went to the Cumberland Avenue facility, but not all.

Jacob and Anna might be in the minority, according to Elowe. He said when the clubs were open in Sagamore Village and Riverton, each location had about 20 kids a day. Today, 40 children from Riverton and Sagamore enrolled in a program on Cumberland Avenue.

“We serve at least as many as before,” he said.

But Jacob and Anna are not among them.

“It was a really special place,” Anna said. “And the worst part is, there’s nothing we can do about it. »

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