The King Kennedy Community Center in Ravenna built a new gymnasium in 2022 with financial support from the county, Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County, Neighborhood Development Services and the First Congregational Church of Ravenna.
Hummel Construction is in the process of building a new addition onto the gymnasium thanks to $80,000 from the Ravenna Township trustees, $58,000 from Portage County commissioners and $30,000 from Family & Community Services. The addition will be used to store gym equipment, tables and chairs for events, and will also include restrooms. The project is expected to be finished by late August or early September.
“Instead of having to go back inside and go into the older center to go to the bathroom, they can just use this [bathroom] right here,” Portage County Treasurer John Kennedy said. “It’s going to be so much more convenient. The other great news about having the bathroom here is, people don’t have to go outside and potentially slip and fall over the winter months, so it’s gonna be a lot more accessible.”
Dinners, luncheons and the kids summer program lunches are made in the King Kennedy Community Center’s well-equipped kitchen.
“We’re going to have our back-to-school event on Aug. 17, and our first back-to-school carnival, too,” King Kennedy Center Director Myia Sanders said. “We’ll have the book bag giveaways inside the gymnasium and we’ll have braiders and barbers doing the kids’ hair inside the center. We’ll be down at the baseball field having water balloon fights, and having funnel cakes, playing games and just having a good time. We’ll have a DJ down there as well.”
The King Kennedy Community Center offers an after-school program for Portage County kids of all ages. The service includes assistance with daily homework, studying for tests, and individual tutoring. The program works with Ravenna City Schools to target each student’s needs.
“For the summer program we do different things with Kent State, Reed Memorial Library, as well as Townhall II,” Sanders said. “We do different events where they learn about peer pressure, drugs and different things like that, and how to say no to strangers. They learned about first aid from the Kent State Health Department, how to ride bikes correctly, and they learned about things like poison ivy.”
