Five Towns Community Center faces uncertain future after county takeover
The Five Towns Community Center is no longer an entity, as of a meeting of its board of directors on July 3.
The center’s lease with Nassau County expired that day, and the county has assumed control of the property, as stated in a June 17 letter to the center’s board.
Community members never received any official notification of the decision, nor did the staff, the volunteers or the participants in the center’s Head Start child care program.
County Executive Bruce Blakeman granted permission for the building to stay open until July 8, but on Tuesday, as the Herald went to press, the Head Start program had ended and the summer camp needed a new home.
“Since we don’t have a home, we have to think about how we are going to maintain,” Gwynn Campbell, the center’s board president, said. “We definitely want to maintain.”
The board, Campbell added, was considering the scope of the center’s activities, and the programs that could still function.
“It seems like it’s going away,” she said of the center, which has existed in one form or another for over 100 years, “because anyone else who goes into the building hasn’t discussed if the name will stay. There was nothing said to us.”
Last year, the county requested proposals from organizations to operate the 5.7-acre site on Lawrence Avenue in Lawrence, and two were submitted: one from the Marion & Aaron Gural Jewish Community Center, in Cedarhurst, and another from the Lawrence school district. The county has yet to make a decision on the future of the facility.
In a rally at the center on July 2, parents and community center teachers voiced their outrage that the building was shutting down. Last week, deposits for the center’s summer camp and fall enrollment in the Head Start program were still being taken. The program, which accommodates children ages 3 to 5, is fully booked for the fall.
“The summer camp will continue,” Campbell said. “The administration at Nassau County Executive Blakeman’s office allowed the camp to continue.”
As of press time, it had not been decided whether the camp would take place at the center, or at a Town of Hempstead park.
“It happened too quickly, and no one sat down to iron it out,” Campbell said. “It’s too soon to tell.”
The children and staff who gathered at the rally chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, closing this is no, no!”
Mallory Montalban, a former student who was active at the center, now a parent and a teacher in the Head Start program, criticized the closure. She said she has relied on the center throughout her life.
“There’s nowhere for us to go anymore,” Montalban said. “We have absolutely no place left to call home — this is home for us. There’s nothing available inside our community. I’m hoping they change their mind and keep what’s here. As a community, we should come out and show support to the people who dedicated their lives for us.”
County Legislator Carrié Solages was on hand at the rally to show his support. As a board member of the county Economic Opportunity Commission, he helps oversee the Head Start program. Solages had been told about the situation at the center only two weeks earlier.
“My solution is to keep the doors open, continue services for these programs, he said. “There are drug programs here where people come for services, and now there’s a discontinuation of these services, and they might lose hope. We really need this community center, and cannot do without it.”
Have an opinion on the situation at the Five Towns Community Center? Send a letter to jbessen@liherald.com.
