BY ROBIN MERO Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Friday, May 1, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/76167/
Funding ran out and doors are closing for YouCAN, a center offering art, education and mentoring in a city building on Sang Avenue.
Executive Director Barbara Price Davis said the organization had a 10-year federal grant through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“We knew it was coming to an end and were hoping to position ourselves better for other grants, but the economy took a turn for the worse,” Price Davis said. “I had written several grants, and when those didn’t come in early this year, we knew it was done.”
The final event in the center’s Community Imagination Studio is Saturday, and Price Davis expects more than 100 participants.
The center is liquidating assets and plans a May 15 and 16 yard sale to sell computer equipment, shelves, art supplies and more.
Most recently, the center has offered programs such as a home-school art institute, mommy and me classes, evening art school, visiting artist events and an after-school program for the Yvonne Richardson Center.
The biggest impact on the community will be loss of a summer day camp, Price Davis said. Sixty campers attended each year. Students on free and reduced lunch programs at school paid only $10 a week.
“There’s no other summer program like it,” she said. “This isn’t a matter of the community being under-served after we close; they won’t have any services at all.”
Price Davis has been a fulltime director and said she will continue in the same type of work, contracting with other local organizations. Her staff has all found other work.
“I tell people this incarnation of good may be coming to an end, but it will be repeated somewhere else,” Price Davis said.
The Sang Avenue building is owned by the city and is a former home of the Fayetteville Senior Center. The lease for the building is only $1 per year, as it was purchased with Community Development Block Grant funds and is intended to provide community service.
Fayetteville has three such buildings, and two will soon be available, said Yolanda Fields, community resources director for the city.
The second property is on Garland Avenue, off Cato Springs Road, and formerly housed the Peace at Home Family Shelter, Fields said.
YouCAN originally began in Springdale, but moved to the Sang Avenue property in 2007.
Fields said neighbors originally expressed concern about having YouCAN nearby but were soon won over by the family-oriented programs.
“When they applied, many people weren’t happy, but they didn’t understand the program. Now they’re sad they are leaving. I’ve had positive letters from people in the neighborhood,” Fields said.
One interested tenant has called – Arts Live Theater, now in the Evelyn Hills Shopping Center.
To qualify, a nonprofit group must have a client base that’s at least 51 percent low to moderate income and at least 51 percent Fayetteville residents.
Applications will be considered by a committee, and public hearings may be held.
The Sang Avenue building is in fairly good shape, Fields said, since improvements were made in 2007. The heating and cooling unit is set to be replaced.
A second group that in 2007 was vying for the Sang Avenue building, the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District Inc., still has not opened an adult day care as planned, Fields said. The group is now interested in the second vacant building on Garland Avenue, off Cato Springs Road.
That building is larger, about 3,000 square feet, has a large tree-filled yard and has more of a home feeling.
Some remodeling work is needed, but the city is awaiting its 2009 federal distribution for the block grant program, which usually arrives in April. The funds, hopefully about $635,000, pay for internal programs such as housing rehabilitation, transportation and redevelopment – and $190,000 is distributed to nonprofits, Fields said. They appear to be delayed because of stimulus fund activity in the program.
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