Resource center finds new home at area school

A popular after-school program for Naperville children living in low-income apartment complexes has found a new home.

The Naperville Family Resource Center had been housed in two apartments at the Naper Trails apartment complex on Bailey Road since 2003, but owners of the apartment buildings voted unanimously in the spring not to renew the program's lease, according to one of the property owners.

"It's a wonderful concept, but in reality it becomes a difficult thing to accept living next to it," said Richard Dolep, president of the Naper Trails board of directors. "The (YMCA) did a great job of handling the kids while they're there, but at 5 o'clock they went home and the kids didn't."

The program is operated by the Heritage YMCA Group, which serves Naperville, Aurora and Oswego, and began in 1996.

The resource center recently reopened in a trailer at Scott Elementary School, 500 Warwick Drive, where most children who live at the Naper Trails and nearby Olive Trees apartment complexes attend classes.

Pleas from Naperville Unit District 203 officials, city workers and police officials did not sway the apartment board from ending the lease; although it did extend it to give the YMCA time to find a new place to set up shop.

"We really were very supportive of that particular resource center because it really helped out our kids," said Kitty Ryan, the school district's assistant superintendent for school services and programs.

YMCA officials are paying the school the same amount of rent they would be paying at Naper Trails, Ryan said. The resource center is occupying a trailer that had been used as a textbook storage and routing center. Officials on both ends agreed on a one-year lease.

"If the school district had not opened up their doors, we would not have been able to deliver this valuable program to kids and families in need," said Heritage YMCA President Tom Beerntsen in a press release. "This program is an example of our very best, values driven, mission-based work."

While the new site may be ideal for elementary school children in need of after-school assistance, it is several blocks away from the apartment complexes and may not attract as many youngsters in the summer months, some school officials said.

Beerntsen also said his group now has to look for a facility for junior high and high school students displaced by the resource center's move.