Peoria community center to close, hopes to reopen

PEORIA — A Peoria community center where late comedian Richard Pryor made his first performance is closing its doors, but board members hope to eventually reopen.

George Washington Carver Community Center is closing Sept. 2. The center has roots stretching back to the 1920s.

Board members tell the (Peoria) Journal-Star that the closure is to give them time to reorganize and restructure operations.

The center lost United Way grants last year that made up about 40 percent of what was then a $200,000 a year budget.

Volunteers and board members are gradually moving the center’s Headstart classes, computer lab and senior meals program to other facilities.

Dillard “Johnny Mack” Brown, who left his final seniors’ lunch at Carver Friday, called the center a “monument” to black Peoria.