New Community Campus Hopes to Bring Gathering Space, Activity Hub to Austin

A massive community campus will soon welcome hundreds of kids and families from South and West Side neighborhoods. 

It’s a major project the organization Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development, or BUILD, is taking on. 

It might look like an ordinary gym but for Juvon Crawford it’s more than that.

“I know it’s just for basketball right now but we hope to have volleyball going on and just having people in general joining this space,” said Crawford.

The 19-year-old has been hired as the sports coordinator for the new gym facility. He was 8 years old when he started to participate with the organization after school.

“I love the staff. They don’t treat you like you’re beneath them, they treat you like a grown person who has aspirations and dreams and they encourage you,” he said. “That’s what draws me in the most.”

CEO Adam Alonso watched Crawford grow and says young people like him are why he was driven to expand BUILD’s Location.

“To see our young people and to know that they actually want to work here that’s the exciting part,” Alonso said. “You have generations that reach back, so now Juvon is going to reach back to the next group of young men and women who are coming through and say that was me, I was you let me tell you what’s it like.”

Watch the interview and read the full story from WTTW here.