INDIAN ISLAND – Paige Hauger spent her Wednesday of school vacation playing Wiffle ball and taking a walk on the island with a group from the Penobscot Nation Boys & Girls Club. Sure, the 10-year-old resident could have spent the day riding her bike or taking a swim.

But the Boys & Girls Club is something different – and special.

“You get to see your friends and you get to meet new people,” Hauger said Wednesday afternoon as she sat with pals Branden Hines, 8, and Bradley Cummings, 7, in the club gymnasium while other children played basketball.

The Boys & Girls Club is hoping that children such as Hauger will get to spend time with their friends and do other activities for years to come as the club announced Wednesday the initiation of a $6 million endowment fund campaign.

The club, which was the first Native American Boys & Girls Club in the Northeast, got a $70,000 donation from Tom Chappell, the creator of Tom’s of Maine, to fund the startup of the endowment campaign.

“The program, I feel, is growing, and we have to come up with a strategic plan that can sustain us beyond grants,” director Carla Fearon said.

The Boys & Girls Club has eight employees and an annual budget of $350,000 to serve around 200 children ages 5-18 in Greater Bangor. Tribal affiliation is not a requirement to be a club member and the programs are free.

When the club started in 2000, Fearon said, there was one grant of about $21,000.

The funds raised in the campaign will likely be used for staffing expenses. The staff are critical to the program, Fearon said.

“The kids get attached to the staff,” she said. “… Kids need consistency.”

Benjamin Collings, who is working with the tribe as an endowment fund assistant, said the club will pursue all avenues of fundraising at the state, regional and national levels.

Aside from activities such as Wiffle ball and basketball, the Boys & Girls Club provides an education in tribal culture and history as children can take lessons in areas such as drumming and drum making, basket making, and the Penobscot language.

“This is also sustainability for and dedication for our youth,” said Dana Mitchell, the chairman of the board of directors. “The most important part of it is that this is all free to the children.”

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

990-8287