FAYETTEVILLE — The Yvonne Richardson Community Center has never done anything like this.
On Tuesday, the center will be hosting a fundraiser titled “Celebrate our kids with Coach Mike Anderson” at the Fayetteville Town Center. The event begins at 6 p.m., and tickets are $50 apiece, or $500 for a table of 10.
Anderson, the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, will be at the event. So will formermen’s basketball coach Nolan Richardson, who led the Razorbacks to a national championship in 1994. The center is named after Richardson’s late daughter, Yvonne.
Event organizers say they hope to draw a sellout crowd of 350 people.
“We’ve had several banquets in the past, but this is the biggest effort that we’ve ever made,” says Nancy Allen of Fayetteville, president of the center’s board of directors. “We feel real fortunate to get Coach Anderson and Coach Richardson to come. I think they’re going to be really behind itfor us.”
Located at 240 E. Rock St. in south Fayetteville, the Yvonne Richardson Community Center opened its doors in 1996. It was started by a group of concerned citizens who wanted to create a safe place for children to play and learn.
Allen says that throughout its history, the center has played an important role for children who live nearby and often hail from families that cannot afford even the nominal membership fee for - or cannot manage transportation to - the Donald W. ReynoldsBoys and Girls Club, which is on the west side of Fayetteville. The center’s programming is free.
The center’s role grew after Jefferson Elementary School closed in 2006, Allen adds.
“I think of a school as being a heart of a community, so that pulled their heart out a little bit,” says Allen, a onetime fourth-grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary. “We want this to be a place where we can save these at-risk kids from falling through the cracks. This becomes their place to go in the community, to be safe and play ball and learn.”
The center is open six days a week, and offers a wide array of activities throughout the year. There’s X-Factor, a weekly physical education class for home-schooled children, and an award-winning youth gardening program.
The center also offered a summer Fun4Kids Camp, a series of one-week sessions that averaged 35-45 children from ages 6-12. The center caters primarily to childrenin that age range.
“We do have teen trips, but 6 to 12 is the age where you can normally mold a child,” says Odie Williams, the center’s recreation assistant. “By the time they’re 13 or 14, they’ve developed their ways. We try to get them young and build them up from there.”
There’s also Kids’ Night, a twice-weekly evening in which the gym is filled with children playing games like kickball, dodgeball and jump rope. The center provides a shuttle service to Kids Night, something Allen says they would like to be able to do every day; most children who come to the center either walk or ride bikes there.
“We’d like to have a van that’s dependable,” Allen says. “We’d also like to extend the programs, add someone to teach the kids science, to enrich them with art projects and things they aren’t getting at home.”
Providing more frequent transportation is something Allen hopes can be achieved after Tuesday’s fundraiser. After being introduced by Richardson, Anderson will speak at the event. So will two children who play at the center. There will be a silentauction and a cash bar.
The center relies almost exclusively on grants and sponsors for its funding, so the benefit could go a long way, Allen says.
“My hope is that as people come to it, because they areinterested in seeing Coach Richardson and Coach Anderson, that they will learn about the Yvonne Richardson Center,” Allen says. “I’m afraid there are a lot of people who don’t know it exists or confuse it with the ElizabethRichardson Center [another nonprofit in Northwest Arkansas]. ... We have unlimited things we can do with the proceeds.” For more information about the Yvonne Richardson Community Center, call (479) 444-3461.
Northwest Profile, Pages 114 on 08/26/2012