TOMAH, Wis.-- The Boys & Girls Club in Tomah helps more than 100 kids providing them a place to go just to hang-out and do homework or a safe place to go when they can't go home.

Over the next few days, the club's Teen Center is getting a much-needed makeover thanks to a grant from the Home Depot Foundation. 

It's part of Home Depot's national foundation's effort to find special ways to give back to deserving groups and organizations in the community.

The Teen Center received a more than $12,000 in grant money for the renovations, but that money is proving to be worth a lot more than just a fresh coat of paint and a new floor.

Find anyone working in the Teen Center over the next few days and they'll tell you -- this place needed some major upgrades.

“It was old,” said a volunteer.

“It always had that 'old building' smell,” said another volunteer.

“The doors would come unhinged,” said Sarah Resch, the club's executive director.

Resch said a building that's more than a century old didn't serve well as the club's Teen Center. That's where the Home Depot comes in.

"She had called us up and said, ‘Hey we heard you guys do grants, how do you do that, what's the best way to do that?’” said Tracy Sacia, store manager of the Home Depot in Onalaska.

The club applied for grant from the Home Depot Foundation. It was approved last October. Now, Home Depot employees from all over Wisconsin are working to make sure that all the hammering, drilling and cutting is done with those who deserve it in mind.

"Our kids deserve it,” said Resch. “Being a teen isn't easy in this day and age right now. There’s a lot of pressures on them and they need a place that's theirs."

In the next few days, not only will the building get a fresh coat of paint, but it will also get new doors, new floors and a newly built Learning Center -- but the kids aren't the only one's benefiting.

“We love the values,” said Sacia. “All the time, it’s giving back to the community, whether it’s in La Crosse, Tomah, or Winona, because that's the back bone of everything that we do.”

And working to keep a strong, growing community starts right here.

“They're the future of Tomah,” said Resch. “A lot of the kids here are going to live here. They're going to raise their children here and we're going to need them to be mayor some day, we're going to need them to run all of the businesses in town someday, so we owe it to them.”

When the renovations are complete, the building will have a brand new learning center where kids can do their homework, a separate lounge area and room in the back where they can hold dances.

The renovations should be complete by Saturday. The Teen Center will have a grand opening event, but they're still waiting on newly donated computers for the Learning Center to come so, it unfortunately won't happen for another few weeks.