Schaumburg day care center to get $500,000, a new name

A longtime trustee of Children's Home and Aid has donated a $500,000 naming gift to the organization's new low-income day care center in Schaumburg.

Not only will the gift provide the center with an official name, but it will bring the agency significantly closer to paying off the loan that became necessary after promised state funding for the $2.4 million center dried up.

The donation was made by Marletta Darnall, a trustee of Children's Home and Aid for more than 20 years, and her husband Bob.

"We are so thrilled, we are over the top!" Children's Home and Aid President and CEO Nancy Ronquillo said after Friday's announcement. "We are almost speechless."

A dedication ceremony is being planned for this summer, by which time the Darnalls will decide exactly how they want the family's name to be reflected on the signs.

Marletta Darnall, who lives in Chicago, has held several different leadership roles within the organization, especially in resource development and expansion of its base of support, Ronquillo said.

Darnall was traveling from Florida to Chicago Friday and could not be immediately reached for comment.

The day care center's purpose is to create an option for the growing number of financially struggling parents in the area to go back to work or school.

Children's Home and Aid was able to look after 42 children in a borrowed space at Our Saviour's United Methodist Church in Schaumburg, next to the current site. But the permanent building allowed that number to go up to 110 when it finally opened nearly a year ago.

After state funding for the center was frozen in 2003 by then governor Rod Blagojevich, the building sat partially completed on Schaumburg Road for years before the agency gave up on government backing and took out a loan to be repaid by private donations.

With the Darnalls' donation, Children's Home and Aid has about another $500,000 left to raise, not including a $500,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation offered as a challenge for the rest of the money to be raised by Sept. 30.