Girls Inc. of Santa Fe looks to expand with new facility
A Santa Fe nonprofit that has provided summer and after-school programs for young girls for 70 years is planning to expand beyond its Hillside home with a new facility on Rufina Street.
Girls Inc. of Santa Fe — which aims to help girls succeed academically, emotionally and socially, according to its website — has had a waitlist for decades. The new 4-acre site near Meow Wolf will allow the nonprofit to serve more kids in a more centrally located environment, CEO Kim Brown said.
The vision for the property includes indoor and outdoor classrooms, a gymnasium, a teaching kitchen, a greenhouse, a chicken coop, a pavilion, a caretaker residence and areas for dance, fitness and art. There are also plans for a potential small business — like a coffee shop — for teenager entrepreneurial training.
“The goal here is to be able to serve more families and girls in our community by enlarging the capacity, creating more opportunities for STEM education, arts, physical fitness with the gymnasium and the sport court,” said Jennifer Jenkins of JenkinsGavin Inc., the project applicant, at an early neighborhood notification meeting this week.
The proposed site is located at 2904 Rufina St., a vacant lot at the intersection of Rufina Street and Rufina Circle.
Funding the project will take “a lot of community support” from a variety of sources, Brown said. Girls Inc. is in the beginning stages of navigating the funding process with a capital campaign consultant, she said. No price tag on the project has been released yet.
