Blackfoot center looks for community input

Bigger and better in Blackfoot, those are the hopes for the new community center currently in the works.

The announcement was made about a year ago, but they’ve yet to break ground. But now the center is turning to you for help.

?If the dream is achieved for the project that we’re looking to do, I think it will be a great,? Blackfoot Community Center?s Vance Knight said.

But today, there’s still no sign of the new center, in fact a location hasn’t even been finalized yet.

?It’s a slow process, it just takes time,” the center’s Ashlee Howell said.

But progress has been made in the past year. The Community Center has received multiple grants, and they put together a Board of Directors and Building committee to speed the process along.

?This has been a driving passion of ours to give something back to the local community,” Brent Arave said.

And now the center needs input from the community.

?We want to get as much feedback from the community as possible,” Knight said.

An online survey asks 10 questions, such as how many miles would you travel to the new center or what programs and classes would you like to see?

There’s a waiting list for the after-school programs and there’s a lot of shared space in the current location. But when the new center opens, these kids will enjoy rock climbing walls, batting cages and even a swimming pool all in a building the size of one and a half football fields.

?There are a lot of people involved that want to see this thing through and want to see it survive,” Knight said.

The survey will be online until Feb. 13. To take the survey go to the Blackfoot Community Center website.

The building director hopes to break ground on the new center by October.