Work continues at last on long-delayed day care center

Motorists on Schaumburg Road might have been shocked recently to see actual construction work resume on a low-income day care center after a five-year delay.

Occupancy of the Schaumburg center, which can serve up to 110 children, is expected in December, said Karen Selman, vice president of the Northwest Suburban Region of the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois.

Work was able to resume because of a $750,000 state grant the village received last year, as well as a $1.5 million bank loan taken out by the society that it plans to repay through fundraising.

Construction abruptly stopped in 2003 when the center became one of 1,980 projects whose promised state funding was frozen by then-new Gov. Rod Blagojevich as he tried to cope with the state's budget crisis.

The $2.4 million center was expecting $966,000 in state funding, but by the time of the freeze only $100,000 of that had been received by former state Rep. Terry Parke.

Since then, more of the money did come through but $541,000 of the expected funding was not received, which caused other funding sources to dry up, Selman said.

"We're so absolutely thrilled," she said of the new progress, pointing out that the recent breakthroughs came just when a decision finally had to be made on whether to go forward.

The society already operates a day care program at Our Savior's United Methodist Church, next to the current construction site at 725 E. Schaumburg Road.

But the new building will allow the number of children served to rise from 42 to 110.

"It's through the grace of the church that we've been able to survive all this time," Selman said.

A priority list is established for the center's clientele. First are children who are victims of abuse and neglect, then children of adolescent parents and finally children of low-income parents.

The waiting list for the program has remained long throughout the project's history, Selman said.

"We're getting calls every day, but of course we're not expecting people to sit and wait," she said.

A steering committee of community members is overseeing fundraising efforts. Its leader is Bob Riter, chairman and CEO of Schaumburg-based American Chartered Bank.

"We're off to a decent start," Riter said of the committee's fundraising.

No big donors have yet been found, but about 10 percent of the debt has been spoken for, he added.

Riter said this is about where he'd expect things to be so early in both the construction and fundraising efforts.