Today, Hampton Roads celebrates. A gleaming new center where kids will play and learn and be mentored, a gathering place for fitness, worship, classes and performing arts, opens in Norfolk's Broad Creek.
The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, with 92,000 square feet, will anchor the neighborhood. The center will be run by the Salvation Army, the 27th of 30 such facilities across the country.
Spurred by a $40 million gift for construction from Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, Hampton Roads' philanthropists, businesses and foundations - led by the late Joshua Darden - raised $26.9 million for the local match.
Leaders are rightly proud of those efforts, which started at least seven years ago when the community began considering whether it could raise the necessary money.
It has. The result is a 7,000-square-foot gym and fitness center, a cafe, lounge for teenagers and a child care center unlike anything in the region. The aquatic complex has a river and two-story slide. The 400-seat chapel will host services on Sundays and serve as a theater for special events. There are classrooms and meeting rooms. A place to gain spiritual renewal, physical fitness, mental stimulation and a social life.
Opportunities to see the state-of-the-art Kroc Center, at 1401 Ballentine Blvd., continue today with an open house from 9 a.m. 'til noon, a dedication ceremony at 1 p.m., and a free concert by the Salvation Army National Capital Band at 7.
On Sunday, a prayer service in the chapel at 10:30 a.m. will be followed by a celebration for the public from 2 to 6 p.m.
The Kroc Center has brought investment and opportunity to a neighborhood that needed it. It offers affordable memberships. Young people can apply for internships, get job skills and learn what it takes to become successful adults.
This is a day some weren't certain would ever come. A day to celebrate.