Brooksville opens new Boys & Girls Club for youth mentoring

Brooksville families got a new after-school anchor at Coach Lorenzo Hamilton Sr. Park, as Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tampa Bay opened a site intended to fill a year-long gap in local youth programming and give children a safer place to spend their afternoons. The organization said Hernando County has the highest rate of disconnected youth among the four counties it serves, a number that sharpened the need for supervised space, mentoring and working-family support.

The new club is at 899 Kennedy Blvd. in Brooksville, inside the 25-acre park off State Road 50 that Hernando County renamed Coach Lorenzo Hamilton Sr. Park in October 2023. County officials later returned to the same location for a March 24, 2025 ribbon cutting tied to park improvements and a new playground, underscoring how much public investment has recently been directed there.

At the May 22 ribbon cutting for the club, the crowd included the Greater Hernando Chamber of Commerce, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tampa Bay officials, Brooksville Parks and Recreation staff, community leaders and Hernando County Sheriff’s Office deputies from the COPPS unit. The sheriff’s office says that unit has operated since 1996 and focuses on community-oriented policing and problem solving, a fit for a facility meant to keep young people connected to adults, routines and positive activity.

The 1,500-square-foot club was set up as a working daily-use space rather than a ceremonial office. Inside were rows of laptops, coloring books, workbooks, STEM projects and comfortable chairs for reading or relaxing. Outside, children will have access to a playground, cornhole boards and a ping pong table. That mix of academic and recreational equipment is designed to support both school readiness and supervised play, two needs that became more urgent after Hernando Boys and Girls Club before- and after-school programs at seven schools closed on Dec. 5, 2024.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tampa Bay said the Brooksville site is part of its 2026 Centennial celebration and a broader expansion into Hernando County after a year without Boys & Girls Club programming there. The organization said it is a separate 501(c)(3) from the former Boys & Girls Clubs of Hernando County and now operates 41 club sites across Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties.

The Brooksville club was scheduled to begin summer programming June 8 and run through July 31, from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., before continuing with after-school programming during the school year. In a county that said its population reached 218,150 on July 1, 2024, the new club adds a concrete place for children to learn, stay safe and be guided after the school day ends.