Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Kids' center improves

Happy Workers Children's Center sees healthy donations and an energizing new board.

By MARY JANE PARK
Published January 1, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Happy Workers Children's Center, the venerable institution that has cared for the children of many of the city's working poor, saw some improvements in 2005 compared with 2004, when budget cuts and strained family finances meant that many parents could not afford even subsidized fees.

Executive director Virginia Irving said then that many children were staying with relatives or friends of their parents and were not getting sufficient educational tools.

Happy Workers, 920 19th St. N, now serves 132 children ages 2 months to 5 years old, offering meals, education, recreation, family involvement and family literacy programs.

"Today, with all the stresses that children bring" to the center, Irving said, caretakers must "teach and counsel and nurture more. That's why volunteers are so important. They help us to provide some of that warmth and nurturing."

Irving acknowledged that some potential support for the center has gone to helping victims of the disastrous 2005 hurricanes, but she said financial donations increase during the holidays, and new appointments to the board of directors have energized the organization.

"We're in a better place than where we were (in 2004)," she said.

A $3.5-million capital campaign to rebuild the center should bear fruit in 2007 and 2008, she said.

[Last modified January 1, 2006, 00:28:15]