 Jamie Mullins, chairman of the Paron Community Trust, shows the old school shop room where officials want to eventually build a day care for young children. By Kristal Kuykendall
Courier Staff Dan and Kathy Carlson of Paron have a problem — and it’s a common one for parents in this Saline County community.
They have zero options for after-school care programs in their area. The family currently relies on a few local individuals who provide in-home care, but they’re not always available and the waiting list is sometimes long, local residents say.
So Dan Carlson is excited about the plan to start an after-school care program at the Paron Community Center.
“It is a hardship not having any local programs,” he said. “My wife and I don’t have parents and aunts and uncles who live around here — a lot of kids here rely on that. If you rely on older residents in the community like we do, they’re not always available because they may have doctor’s appointments or things like that.”
Carlson said he hopes his kids, Rachel, 11, Julian, 9, and Leland, 6, will be able to attend the after-school program as soon as it’s up and running. He also said he is hoping it will have summer programs to “keep the kids busy while they’re out of school” and the parents are working. Many folks in Paron have to look to Little Rock or Benton for such programs currently, he said, and those fill up fast.
“I travel out of state a lot for my job, and when I’m gone my wife is just desperate for someone to help her with the kids when they’re not in school,” Carlson explained. “This would really be a huge help.”
An after-school program is just one of the things on tap for the center, which used to house Paron High School.
Jamie Mullins, chairman of the Paron Community Trust, which operates the center, said the after-school program could be up and running by the beginning of the next school year, if all goes as planned.
She noted that it won’t compete with Head Start, which operates in Paron.
“We have a wonderful Head Start, but we want to cover the kids that Head Start doesn’t cover, and the kids that go elsewhere or don’t go anywhere because the parents don’t have any place for them to be before and after school while they’re working,” Mullins said.
Another major goal is to open a day-care facility for young children at the community center; it would be housed in the old agriculture building, but it would have to be renovated first, Mullins said.
And before that can happen, money must be raised. The Paron Community Trust will apply for several grants early this year, Mullins said, that hopefully will allow them to begin work on the future day-care building soon. But first, a formal estimate on the work needed will be necessary.
“The agri building, it will need a lot of work. The back of that building is still in the form of a shop class, with sawdust on the floor and all that,” she explained. “And the building needs a new roof. So someone who knows about all that will have to come give us an estimate.”
The restrooms in that building also have to be rebuilt, as they have been ripped out. And the front part of the agri building, now being used as a thrift shop to raise money for the community center, would need to be cleaned out as well, Mullins said.
“This is a big undertaking, and it takes time and money, and pockets are not deep out here in Paron,” she said. “We just have to do it one step at a time. But there is such a need for this, especially for the children’s care programs.”
The agri building that would house the day care has a total of 3,000 square feet, which would allow about 50 kids to attend under state regulations. Mullins’ own grandson, 14-month-old Michael Barnett, would likely be one of the first to sign up; there’s nowhere in Paron for him to go for day care while his mother works, so Mullins keeps him at her job during most of the daytime.
“Yes, he is one of the reasons I am so interested in this,” she said. “I know it would really help out a lot of people out here just like us.”
But the primary goal is to get the after-school program up and running first.
“It’s just not OK to leave a 6-year-old at home alone after school while the parent is at work,” Mullins explained passionately. “But some of these parents out here have no other options. I’m amazed at what some of think is OK. This (community center) can give them not only the education they need but also the tools and the place to do it. That’s how this place started out, and that’s what we want it to keep doing even if it’s no longer a school.”
To raise money for the community center, the trust accepts donations that it sells in the thrift store — everything from tools and household items to clothing and shoes and toys — and it has had several community events. It also is planning an ice cream social sometime soon, hopefully to be sponsored by an Arkansas-based dairy company.
The next fund-raiser is Tuesday night, when it will host Dining To Donate at the Benton Applebee’s restaurant from 4 to 10 p.m. For every person who comes in with the Dining To Donate coupon, 15 percent of their meal total will be donated back to the community center, Mullins explained. They will be handing out coupons at the restaurant’s entry that evening, and coupons also are available at the community center, she said. |
Razorbacks
