A ribbon-cutting at 1099 Mace's Lane in Cambridge on Thursday marked the reopening of a building with a complicated past: a school once reserved for African American students under segregation is now a Boys & Girls Club serving young people across Dorchester County and beyond. Murals of former students line the walls, built from photographs submitted by alumni, and wood salvaged from the original gym floor has been carved into the waveform of the school's alma mater.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore celebrated the opening of its new club at the Mace's Lane Community Center, as reported by WBOC TV. According to the organization's own account, the building first opened as Mace's Lane School in 1952 and continued as a segregated high school until 1969, when all African American students living in Dorchester County were required to attend, per Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore. A separate account from Bay to Bay News gives the school's opening year as 1953, a discrepancy that remains unresolved between the two sources.
A School Remembered Through Art and Artifacts
Barbara Woolford, a former Mace's Lane student and later a vice principal in the school system, is among those whose history informs the center, per WBOC. The old school had a tiger mascot and student clubs including public speaking and the debating society, the station reports. The community center now features artwork created jointly by alumni and club members alongside the alumni murals, and organizers say a planned museum will honor the school's former faculty and staff.
That museum element has a name: the Edythe M. Jolley Museum & Cultural Center, honoring Mace's Lane High School's first principal, according to the Cambridge Spy. Jeff Breslin, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore, said he wants young people entering the center to see the school's history, and told WBOC that the club will tell the stories of people associated with the former school. He added that the school's history distinguishes the Mace's Lane Boys & Girls Club from other sites.
From Groundbreaking to a $1.5 Million Gap
The project traces back to April 2021, when the Dorchester County Council approved a 99-year lease of the building to Mace's Lane Community Center, Inc. for $1, the same Cambridge Spy report notes. Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore joined elected officials and community leaders to break ground on June 10, 2022, according to the organization. The project was planned as a 26,000-square-foot community center anchored by a 16,000-square-foot Boys & Girls Club, with a full-size gymnasium doubling as an auditorium, classrooms, a tech lab, and flexible program spaces, per the Cambridge Spy account.
Funding arrived in pieces. In fall 2023, U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin announced $1 million in federal funding for the project, the outlet reported. By July 2025, Mace's Lane Community Center leaders said the project was $1.5 million short of full funding, and the City of Cambridge applied that September for an $800,000 Community Development Block Grant to help close the remaining gap. The same report had anticipated a summer 2026 opening, a projection that preceded this week's ribbon-cutting.
Filling a Statewide Gap in Afterschool Access
Breslin said more than 1,400 children in Cambridge lack access to a quality out-of-school program, and that the shortfall extends to more than 250,000 children statewide, according to WBOC. He said schools and youth organizations need to work together to close that gap, and that every young person deserves access to a Boys & Girls Club. Breslin also said the organization provides young people with opportunities for joy, belonging and growth, and that programs serve children ages 6 to 18, including peers and mentors supporting academic success and career exploration.
Those local numbers echo a broader pattern. Statewide, unmet demand for afterschool programs has reached an all-time high, with nearly 390,000 Maryland children who would be enrolled in a program if one were available, according to the MOST Network. A 2025 report found that nearly three-quarters of Maryland families who want afterschool programs for their children have difficulty finding or affording them, as reported by Yahoo News. That report found more than 145,000 children enrolled in such programs statewide, roughly 15% of Maryland's school-aged children, with nearly 60% of parents citing cost and 44% citing a lack of programs in their communities.
What Comes Next for Cambridge's Two Clubs
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore has operated its Leonards Lane club in Cambridge since 2021. The organization plans to make Mace's Lane its main Cambridge location and is still working out plans for the Leonards Lane site, with programming expected to move to Mace's Lane after the first of 2027, per WBOC's reporting. At Leonards Lane, Breslin has separately said the club saw a 35% decrease in juvenile crime within 0.3 miles since it opened, according to MyEasternShoreMD — a figure attributed to Breslin rather than an independently established finding.
The vision for the Mace's Lane site dates back further than the current build. An earlier proposal for renovating the school outlined a nearly $5 million project. Decades later, murals, salvaged gym-floor wood, and a planned museum now carry that history into the building's new life as a club for Dorchester County's children.
