New Community Center Welcomes Lyon Park Families
Center seen as central to neighborhood revitalization
More than 500 people celebrated the long-awaited transformation of a rundown former elementary school near campus into a gleaming community center.
The Community Family Life and Recreation Center at Lyon Park, a partner in the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, has begun serving families from neighborhoods in Southwest Central Durham. More than 110 children in Operation Breakthrough's Head Start program are preparing for kindergarten in spacious renovated classrooms. The Council for Senior Citizens is conducting programs for older people.
Duke's Community Health, a joint division of the School of Nursing and the Department of Community and Family Medicine in the School of Medicine, will open a wellness clinic for low-income residents in January '" the neighborhood's first such clinic of its kind. Duke's Partners for Youth mentoring program for at-risk teens will be based at the center. Lyon Park will also participate in Duke's $2.25 million, four-year Holistic Opportunity Plan for Enrichment grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for a neighborhood-based after-school and summer programs for at-risk youths.
"I think Saturday was the culmination of all the hopes and dreams shared by long-time residents and people who will use this facility," said Mayme Webb, neighborhood coordinator in the Duke University Office of Community Affairs, who lives in the Lyon Park neighborhood and attended the school in the 60's. "It was just so sad to see that building that had provided so much value to the neighborhood youth become an eyesore."
The center, replete with a new gym and indoor running track, 250-seat auditorium with skylights, dance studio, kitchen and computer center, was years in the making. In 1992, Rev. Fredrick Davis, pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church, dreamt of renovating the 1920s-era building with the city, and turning it into a vibrant gathering place in the neighborhood plagued by urban blight.
Voters approved $6.4 million renovation of the school in a 1996 bond referendum. Fund-raising problems, construction overruns and delays plagued the project. In June, the city agreed to pay $600,000 per year through 2007 to staff and manage the center in partnership with Calvary Ministries Inc., a nonprofit that has five years to raise the money needed to operate the center.
Lyon Park and Calvary Ministries have been partners in the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, which supports residents of 12 neighborhoods closest to campus in efforts to improve their quality of life and boost student achievement in their seven public schools.
In addition to locating the wellness clinic at the center, Duke's endorsement helped Lyon Park to secure local and federal government support. The Neighborhood Partnership secured a playground for the center and donated money to it from the Duke-Durham Campaign.
"It's been apparent to us for some time that despite difficulties getting construction completed, when it was finished, Lyon Park was going to be an absolutely critical resource for that community and indeed all of Durham," said John Burness, senior vice president of public affairs and government relations at Duke.
On Saturday, the focus was on the future.
"This dream is a reality," Davis said. "And this is not just a facility for Lyon Park'This is for all the citizens of Durham."