Bill Burton has built his vision for a safe place to play and learn

photographed by John Lok

THE GIRLS can't stop giggling.

Aiyanna Bethea and Teja Kirby, both 12, are in the music studio at Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club, trying to record a song they just wrote called "My Best Friend." But standing less than a foot apart, wrapped around a single microphone, the girls keep looking at each other and laughing. Finally, they put their hands over their eyes to get through the chorus straight-faced.

Pumping music into the girls' headphones from a 24-track control board is their teacher, Tendai Maraire, percussionist for Seattle's hottest music act, Shabazz Palaces. "They're rapping positive," says Maraire of the girls, laying down a backing track donated to the kids' club by local artist Vitamin D.

In another corner of the building, Detective Denise "Cookie" Bouldin leads her Urban Youth Chess Club. Wearing a Seattle Police uniform and holstered gun, Bouldin dispenses chess and life lessons to 20 kids quietly fixated on plastic kings and queens. A few students barely come up to her waist. "You don't have to be the fastest, tallest, biggest to play chess. You don't even have to speak the same language," she says, here in the state's most ethnically diverse ZIP code.

Bouldin grew up in the projects of Chicago. She knows what it's like to be pressured to join gangs and get into prostitution. She knows how much the kids in Rainier Vista's public housing need a safe place in the hours after school.

And what a haven they have, an $18 million gem — officially named the Joel E. Smilow Clubhouse at Rainier Vista in tribute to a key donor. It's the largest Boys & Girls Club in public housing in the nation. Four blocks west of Columbia City on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, the place buzzes with the noise of kids playing Ping-Pong and pool between dinner and a daily homework session called "Power Hour."

"The facility is important," says Mack Hogans, a former Weyerhaeuser executive who helped raise money for the club, which opened two years ago. "But it's the programs that excite me."

On a given day, here's what you might see: computer labs where kids are building an iPhone application and an electric car, painting classes taught by the Nature Consortium, dentists doing free checkups for the uninsured, individual tutoring, world drumming, foosball and "Mini-Me" basketball for kids as young as 4.

Hogans, and many others, deserve credit. But if you ask who, above all, is responsible; who had the vision and the stamina to see the club finally built — while costs climbed and financial pledges plummeted along with stocks — the answer always comes back to one humble man, Bill Burton, the club's stalwart director, affectionately called The Godfather.

"For the vast majority of people, he is virtually unknown," says former Mayor Greg Nickels, a big fan of Burton's. "But to that community and people working with kids, he is something of a legend."

After having lunch with Burton, a man so soft-spoken you have to lean over the table to hear him, you wonder: How did he ever pull it off?

ROMELLE BRADFORD remembers the first time he encountered Bill Burton.

Summer before 10th grade and Bradford was aspiring to thug life. He saw the way his older brother, a hardened gangster, was respected on the streets, treated like royalty. "I wanted that myself," Bradford says.

He skipped school most days at Cleveland High, his GPA sinking to 0.8. He stole and robbed and hit people "just to hit 'em." He landed in court for truancy, leading to a summer job at Burton's club. Bradford, now 26, recalls opening the door to the old building. Burton loomed outside his office. First thing he said was "take off the hat." Next, the doo-rag; pull up the pants. And don't come to the club if you're not in school.

"He looked like a linebacker," Bradford says. "Very intimidating."

Deep down, Bradford had a secret. He was a computer-loving nerd. He always thought "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" were cool, but kept it to himself. "My whole image on the streets would be shot if anyone knew that," he says.

At the club, though, he quickly made friends with two guys who shared his passion for computers and a Japanese cartoon, Dragon Ball Z. At Burton's place, he could be himself. "The club was fun, something I never had before."

After his summer job ended, Bradford started showing up every day to volunteer. He began to see a more genial side of The Godfather. At Christmas time, Santa Claus would appear, walking slightly stooped, wearing distinctive black-and-red Air Jordans. "Sure enough, that was Bill."

With Burton checking on him several times a week, Bradford pushed his GPA up to 3.4. Next thing he knew, he was applying to be King County Boys & Girls Club "youth of the year." With his truant-to-tutor story, Bradford beat the competition. "Bill was the loudest person in the room when I won. He stood with his hands up and let out a roar." Then he cried.

Bradford went on to win statewide honors. Shortly after, Bradford's dad died. "Bill stepped it up. He became my dad."

In 2006, Bradford was chaperoning a teen dance at the club. As the crowd filtered out, Bradford thought he saw trouble brewing between two groups of kids. He jogged toward the crowd in his red "staff" T-shirt. A police cruiser pulled up. An officer, who turned out to be a 24-year-old rookie, told him to freeze. Bradford says he didn't hear the order. The officer knocked him down with a forearm to the chin, threw him over the hood of the car and cuffed him. Bradford was booked for resisting arrest and obstructing justice.

Civil-rights attorney Lem Howell took on his case. Burton never wavered, and testified on Bradford's behalf. A jury awarded him a $269,000 judgment.

Then his mom died. "And Bill was there 100 percent," he says.

Bradford now works at the club. His top priority is raising his brother, a freshman at Franklin High School. He aspires to be a leader like Burton, but says "there will never be another like him."

SON OF A steelworker and nurse, Burton, 61, grew up in the old Rainier Vista, long before the barracks-style project was bulldozed by the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) and turned into new, brightly colored mixed-income town houses and apartments.

He lettered in football and baseball at Garfield High School and went on to play at Yakima Valley College (where he met Ron Sims, the former King County executive, in 1971; one of many relationships that would prove fruitful). He transferred to the UW and concentrated just on school, becoming the first in his family to get a college degree, a bachelor's in recreation planning and administration. He settled into a job at the Meredith Mathews East Madison YMCA when tragedy struck.

Burton and his wife, Ruthie, lost their 6-month-old son to sudden infant death syndrome. He decided then to dedicate his career to helping kids.

The Boys & Girls Club recruited him in 1980 and promoted him three years later to the top job at the old Rainier Vista club, a squat brick fortress with bars on the windows and a leaky roof.

But "that little box called the Boys & Girls Club was like a diamond" to Burton, says Detective Bouldin. "He made the best of it."

Burton set out to bring others into the club family. He cultivated a strong board of directors, first reaching out to Ernie Dunston, manager of the downtown Sears and Seattle University basketball Hall-of-Famer. Burton recalls his first speech to the board, written on lined yellow paper. Nervously, he talked about his own climb out of the projects and into a graduation gown. Others weren't as fortunate, he stressed. "That's our job," he told them, "making sure they graduate."

He wanted to give Vista kids a club like the nice ones they visited on the Eastside, clubs that led the Vista kids to ask: "Why can't we have something that nice?"

But first, a detour.

Former club President Cary Bozeman cornered Burton one day in 1991 and implored him to take over the White Center club, plagued by gang violence. "It was a good day if no one got hurt" at the club, says Nickels, then a county councilman whose district included White Center.

Four years later, after what Nickels calls an "incredible transition" in White Center, Burton jumped at the chance to return to Vista.

"Growing up in the projects he had one sandlot and a hoop with just a rim. He always wanted to leave something," says Ruthie Burton.

He had promised the kids a club they deserved. "I had to go finish what I told them I would do."

TO FIGURE out what that would look like, Burton scouted the Mountaineers Club with a tape measure. He went to Chicago to study a new youth center named after Michael Jordan's father. He started to see the outlines of a new Vista club.

Sites and partnerships were explored. Finally the Boys & Girls Club struck a deal with the housing authority. SHA would provide land at the corner of MLK Way and South Alaska Street for $1 a year. The club would welcome any kids ages 6 to 18 for a small membership fee (now $3 a month, with scholarships available).

The challenge for Burton: Raise $8 million for construction. He put together a fundraising team led by Dunston, Hogans, Sims and attorney Mark Kantor.

The group rounded up $3 million. Then 9/11 blew a hole in the economy. "We were stuck," Burton says.

The low point?

"All the time."

He turned to public institutions, hoping their contributions might encourage private donors.

Nickels and the City Council came up with $1 million. Sims and the county followed, as did the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Kantor sleuthed out $3.2 million in tax credits.

As costs mounted, the "asks" continued, often with Burton and Bradford working in tandem. Burton would open with a raspy talk about the need, the demographics of the area, the low graduation rate. Then he'd introduce Bradford, the award-winner, who'd detail how the new space would help kids.

Burton's dream was a family affair. Ruthie chipped in by whipping up batches of her gumbo, which commanded bids worth thousands at club auctions. And she was well-connected in her own right. She worked as coordinator of interpretive services at Harborview Medical Center and was a local union president. She knew everyone from politicians to immigrant-community leaders. "It's like the club is an extension of their marriage," says David Allen, executive vice-president at McKinstry Construction and club board member for years.

Despite his high blood pressure and diabetes, Burton was relentless, "following every lead, not thinking any source of funds was out of his reach," says Dunston.

Accounts of Burton's persuasiveness sound almost mystical.

"I made the mistake of making eye contact with Bill at an event," says Terri Olson-Miller, who became the first donor to the capital campaign and now chairs the Rainier Vista board.

"He's got magic," says Sims, now deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"You feel if you say 'no' he'll start bleeding on the floor, and you'll have to call 911," says Hogans.

"He gets people to write the check on the spot more than anyone I've seen," says Allen.

"It's not like many fundraising acts you see in Seattle," says Jack Creighton, former CEO of Weyerhaeuser and United Airlines. Creighton has been giving $10,000 a year to the club after contributing many times that to the capital campaign.

"Bill's approach is very disarming," Creighton adds. "We have lunch. Somewhere in the conversation he slips in, 'I'm hopeful you can continue to keep up your annual giving,' and almost automatically I say, 'Sure, Bill.' "

Donors also say they thought their money would be well-spent because club staff, led by Rick Dupree and Denise Overton-Lewis, seem to be cut in Burton's mold: unfailingly professional and polite.

It all seemed to pay off when the new club threw open its doors on Nov. 15, 2008. More than 2,300 people streamed in. Police, firefighters, politicians and kids gave Burton a standing ovation.

"That was the best day of my life," Burton says. "Mom and Dad would've been proud."

THE NEW CLUB is triple the size of the old one, and so is its $1.2 million annual budget.

The club opened just as the economy sunk into the Great Recession, and some donors suddenly couldn't deliver on their pledges.

With that in mind, as well as his health challenges and desire to spend more time with his two grandchildren (Dylan, 1, and Ava, 3), Burton decided earlier this year to put the club's daily operations in Dupree's hands.

Burton's title now is major gifts officer; his focus, making the club financially sustainable.

Dupree proudly notes last year's success. Rainier Vista was the first of the King County clubs to take in more than $1 million in revenue — the highest share from donations and smallest from member fees (just 12 percent).

The club's facade now bears the name of Smilow, a Connecticut philanthropist whose daughter lives in Seattle.

"We're so appreciative of what he's done," says Olson-Miller of Smilow's $1.05 million gift. "But I desperately want to have individuals well-known in this community to have their names on our building."

Burton has someone in mind, someone in the seven-figure range, whom he declines to name. It would be just like The Godfather to make an offer that couldn't be refused.

Bob Young is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. John Lok is a Seattle Times staff photographer.