When students walk through the doors of the refurbished Sunset Hill Elementary School as classes resume Wednesday, they’ll likely notice the several new classrooms, music and art facilities, and expanded cafeteria and kitchen that comprise the school’s recently wrapped $9.6 million renovation project.

Also new this year: the addition of a Boys & Girls Club site at Sunset Hill, 901 Schawrz Road. The opening, which kicks off programming after the final bell Wednesday, marks the achievement of a longtime Boys & Girls Club goal, said Colby Wilson, executive director of the Lawrence club.

The Sunset Hill site is the 15th — and final — elementary school in the Lawrence district to operate an in-house Boys & Girls Club site, an effort that started with Cordley Elementary during the 1999-2000 school year.

“Other principals and parents heard the success we were having at Cordley, and over time we just kept finding more funding, saw opportunities, built relationships in different schools and communities, and just started adding sites in the elementary schools,” Wilson recalled of the program’s beginnings. “And so, 16 years later, we’re in all elementary schools.”

Today, the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence serves about 1,500 kids in its on-site elementary school programs alone, up from about 100 a day when the Cordley site first opened. Wilson expects that number to climb as Sunset Hill launches its after-school program Wednesday.

As with Boys & Girls Club’s other on-site programs, the Sunset Hill location will employ a full-time area director, part-time site coordinator responsible for day-to-day operations, and, depending on enrollment numbers, up to a dozen part-time staff working directly with students.

The after-school program, which runs until 6 p.m. (parents can pick up their kids anytime post-final bell) Monday through Friday, focuses on three key components: academic success, character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyle. Staples include a designated Power Hour for homework, Triple Play health and fitness activities, and other leadership and service-based learning strategies.

As part of the Boys & Girls Club partnership with the Lawrence school district, site directors work to maintain standards aligned with schools’ curricula, explained Kevin Harrell, the district’s executive director of student services.

“It’s a seamless system,” Harrell said. “That’s part of the importance of the person in charge of the Boys & Girls Club at the building — they work pretty closely with the building and the teachers, so they know what’s going on.”

As of Tuesday, enrollment at Sunset Hill’s program hovered around 25 students. The site has the capacity for 75, and Wilson expects to fill that space quickly. Eventually, he hopes to have 100 kids enrolled at Sunset Hill, at which point Boys & Girls Club will hire more staff and “expand the program to however many folks want to sign up.”

In the meantime, Boys & Girls Club is also focusing its efforts on the construction of a new Teen Center, which ideally would broaden the program’s reach to all Lawrence students. The funding campaign had already reached its halfway point by April 2016, and Wilson expects to reach that goal by early 2017.

The multimillion-dollar facility, which would tentatively open in late 2017 or early 2018, would have the resources to provide after-school and summer programs to upwards of 300 kids on a daily basis. The Boys & Girls Club’s current teen center serves about 60 middle school and high school students a day.

“This growth at the elementary level has really created a need to provide more space, more quality activities for middle school and high school kids,” Wilson said.

Although Boys & Girls Club emphasizes its service to “kids who need us the most,” Wilson stresses that programming is open to all students, regardless of background or socioeconomic status.

Mentorship, academic assistance, character building and a healthy lifestyle — “Those are things that all kids need,” he said.

To learn more about the Sunset Hill program and other in-school sites, including how to enroll, visit www.membership.bgclk.org. Enrollment-related questions can be directed to area director Scharla Paryzek-Woods at 813-6874.