The Martha’s Vineyard Boys & Girls Club received a million-dollar boost to its capital campaign for a new, expanded clubhouse and grounds in Edgartown.

Announced Wednesday evening at the Edgartown library, the $1 million grant will come from MV Youth — but not until the club has raised the remaining $1.5 million it needs to begin the $16.7 million project.

“We are very close to moving forward with our plan, but we’re not across the finish line yet,” said Norman Rankow, who chairs the Boys & Girls Club board of directors.

The promised donation is a high-profile seal of approval for the campaign to build an all-new, 25,000 square-foot building, he said.

“This grant from MV Youth is just paramount. They do their due diligence and only make awards to qualifying and deserving organizations,” said Mr. Rankow, who in 2014 was a co-founder of MV Youth, a nonprofit that provides scholarships and grants for capital projects that benefit children and youth.

MV Youth executive director Lindsey Scott said the $1 million pledge had the full support of the advisory board and its board of trustees.

“Obviously, it was a unanimous choice,” Ms. Scott told staff and board members of both nonprofits who gathered at the library to celebrate the award.

The building near the Edgartown School that has housed the Boys & Girls Club for 46 years is cramped and inadequate to the needs of 21st-century Island children, whose numbers are growing, said executive director Dhakir Warren.

“All of last academic year, we had about 270 members registered.... [This year] we had 276 kids registered by October,” Mr. Warren said.

“We’re looking forward to being able to serve future generations in a safe, sustainable building that is state of the art, that’s going to allow us to support our programs and offer access to experiences for youth,” he said.

The new site, 2.3 acres of abutting land purchased in 2021, will allow the club to accommodate more children and to offer more programs and services, including partnerships with other Island organizations, Mr. Warren said.

“We’ll have plenty of space for community gatherings. We’ll have an 8,600-square-foot gym; we’ll have a 4,200-square-foot lobby that will be able to be used for events and gatherings, and then other spaces throughout the building that can be utilized for small functions,” he said.

A full commercial kitchen will replace the current makeshift galley, Mr. Warren added.

“Right now, we’re pumping out 5,000 meals a month out of a kitchen using an industrial oven and convection burners,” he said.

The roomier building also will benefit Island groups, including Island Autism and a Montessori school, that are pressed for space of their own and use the current club during the hours when Boys & Girls Club members are at their town schools, Mr. Warren said.

Individual Islanders will be encouraged to get involved with the club as well, he added, to provide children with opportunities they might otherwise not encounter.

“Boys & Girls Clubs should be a hub for the community,” Mr. Warren said.

“They’re a place to foster our youth but also a place for us to... bring in volunteers and experts and people that have incredible hobbies,” he said.

“You can’t aspire to become what you don’t know exists, and so it’s going to be a really great place for us to reinforce the power of community, the power of bringing together a village to help shape the next generation . . . in the backdrop of a facility that’s safe and secure and that can accommodate the kind of growth we’re seeing now,” Mr. Warren said. “It’s going to be bigger, better, bolder.”

Managing director Barbara-jean Chauvin, who worked with Mr. Warren for years when both were counselors at the regional high school, said the expanded club will make it easier to support students with varying needs, including autistic children and youngsters learning English.

The club also serves as a link, when needed, between schools and consenting families, Ms. Chauvin said.

“If we’re seeing something at the club, we can contact the family [and] if we’re seeing something that we think might be happening at the school, we can communicate with the school. That’s all with the permission of the family,” she said.

“It helps connect that circle,” Ms. Chauvin said.

Other club services include dental clinics, a food pantry and mental health counseling, all added in the past few years in response to children’s needs, Mr. Warren said.

This week’s pledge marks the third time in its less than 10-year history that MV Youth has awarded capital funding to the Boys & Girls Club, with previous grants in 2016 and 2019 totaling $330,000 for repairs and upgrades, according to the MV Youth website, which also lists two $100,000 emergency grants for club operations during the pandemic.

The pandemic, attended by inflation, also slowed progress on the capital campaign, Mr. Rankow said, but general contractor Stanmar, Inc. is standing by to begin the bidding processes for construction once the full $16.7 million financial goal is met.

“We can’t break ground until we have it in the bank, [but] we’d like it to be spring or summer, if possible,” he said. “We’ll see how the bids come in.”