Construction is underway on a new green space with trees, a shaded area, lighting and a wrought-iron fence behind the Boys and Girls Club of Kern County’s building on Niles Street in east Bakersfield.

Calling it a “backyard,” Maggie Cushine, the club’s resource development director, said there’s a need for the new facility.

“A lot of our kids, especially on the east side, don’t have a backyard to call their own, or a safe place to play outside,” she said. “So this allows them to have, one, a safe place to come to the Boys and Girls Club, and a safe place to come outside like the rest of us have.”

Workers had to break out jackhammers to plant the trees Monday. Cushine said many of them came in Friday.

“We’ve got 39 24- and 36-inch trees – so some of them are going to be pretty big – and we’re going to be putting in around 400 shrubs and about 20,000 square feet of grass for the kids to have a chance to run around and play,” Cushine said.

Cushine said they’ll cut the ribbon on the green space in either late February or March. It was made possible through a nearly $400,000 grant from Wells Fargo.

– Anthony Pollreisz