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Though content with solitude, Ronalta Conn has enjoyed bonding with fellow seniors at the Samuel S. Fels South Philadelphia Community Center, 2407 S. Broad St., for nine years. One of more than 1,000 members of its Marconi Older Adults Center, she has contributed to its theater group for five years, yet mounting debt will likely drop the curtain on her performances and all other activities at the 43,000-square-foot site.
Overseer Caring People Alliance has placed Fels up for sale, with the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School, 2600 S. Broad St., emerging as a leading candidate to make its second purchase from the Center City-based company.
Conn, of the 2300 block of South Mildred Street, has gathered six pages of signatures for her petition to keep Fels serving friends, teenagers and young children and employing consummate workers. Her pen has proven concern for the affected parties, but her contemporaries have won her heart and roused her activist streak.
“They feel as if they are being thrown out in the trash,” Conn said Tuesday of the elders.
Deeming Fels a social savior, she is fighting for their space but could be battling bootlessly, as Caring People’s board is reviewing a PPACS agreement of sale, its President and CEO Arlene F. Bell said. If they strike an accord, PPACS’s founder and CEO Angela Corosanite will use the space to educate 350 kindergarteners through fifth-graders, who will complement the 600 pupils at her 11-year-old location.
Through the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development, Caring People sold its Wynnet Building to PPACS for $2 million in Sept. 2004, according to property records. The school has often interacted with Fels, with many students participating in its Boys & Girls Clubs of America and intergenerational programs.
The School District of Philadelphia last year approved PPACS’ plan to add more real estate, so Corosanite began to ponder territory, with her Lower Moyamensing neighbor seeming a fine fit as an extension of her Marconi spot.
“Caring People had been planning to market [Fels] to somebody,” Corosanite said. “Our hope is to acquire the property.”
Bell revealed prolonged economic doldrums and dwindling funds necessitated contact with Corosanite, who made an offer soon after the outreach.
“The recession and the funding cuts have really hurt us,” Bell said via e-mail, citing the inability of this year’s state budget to expand her Pre-K Counts program and slashes to child care subsidies as troubling aspects when considering Fels’ future. “In the past, when one door closes, another has opened. But this environment is different.”
Caring People, with six locations, including Child Care Information Services South/Center City, 1500 S. Columbus Boulevard, nearly needed to cease operations a few years ago due to state budget dilemmas. Bell said all staff members took sizeable temporary pay cuts, with a few layoffs proving that anyone’s prospects could be unsteady. Circulating rumors among local employees on their standing within the company prompted a Jan. 9 meeting at Fels.
“The Fels Center has been laboring under a huge debt since the day the doors opened,” Bell said, detailing that the early ’90s decision to construct the building received approval though the team behind it lacked the funds to pay for the construction.
Filling a community need, its programs do not generate enough revenue to cover the lease. Insufficient status has forced Caring People to subsidize Fels through other programs’ returns. Unable to sustain more loss, Bell, who in response to an inquiry on a decision date timeline noted only that she and her colleagues are still reviewing the agreement of sale, elected to intensify talks with Corosanite.
“We don’t want to sell the building,” Bell said. “We have invested a huge amount of money in this community over the years, and we have provided the community with very high quality services. And we lose a lot of money every year keeping those services going. We simply aren’t in a financial position to continue to lose that money.”
The cold morning winds made any form of shelter desirable, and seniors and children offered a peak at the fancies of different eras as they relied on Fels’ rooms for camaraderie and education last month. Its early learning center busied itself with assisting about 64 children ages 1 to 5. The older set sampled a plethora of options, as Conn’s compadres chose from athletics, swimming and water aerobics, a healthy moves exercise class and The Quarter Pounders & Healthy Weight Management group. Four days removed from Bell’s declaration that the sale process had burgeoned, the employees and participants seemed subdued.
Other than director Tony Diodati, the workers appeared reluctant to comment.
“We have a strong afterschool program,” Diodati said, noting that PPACS, Abraham S. Jenks Academic Plus, 2501 S. 13th St., and St. Richard, 1826 Pollock St., are represented through the Boys and Girls Club.
Numerous artistic, athletic and technological activities delight the youths and adolescents, with programming addressing civic growth. A snack keeps brains going post-classroom time, with the full-day summer slate providing three meals.
The Southeast Philadelphia Collaborative, headquartered at the Houston Center, 2029 S. Eighth St., works with Fels to offer the Teen Center, complete with computer stations, a television and ample opportunities to network. The center involves the teenagers in Boys and Girls Club programs and conferences. Methodist Hospital, 2301 S. Broad St., runs health-related outreach for the seniors, who often interact with students from Prep Charter High School, 1928 Point Breeze Ave., as the latter group performs community service, Diodati said. Fels is testing a salad bar and has discussed increasing animal-assisted therapy sessions. However, the finalization of the sale would alter priorities.
“This is the one part of my life I do not worry about,” a mother, who requested anonymity, said of her son’s time at Fels.
Her offspring has attended the three-floor building for 10 years, joining his grandmother, who worked there for 20 years and is now a senior member. Fels’ offerings have given her family stability, and she laments what their disappearance could mean to other clans, whom she said have no options.
“Where will we go?” she asked. “PPACS is a great school, and I love that my son goes there and that they are expanding but don’t enable more dreams by destroying others.”
Corosanite has corresponded with 1st District Councilman Mark Squilla to devise options for Fels’ seniors and children. Bell has talked with employees about future placement if Corosanite’s pitch proves acceptable, devising plans to transfer them to other sites and to assist with finding jobs outside of Caring People.
“You could not ask for a finer group of staff,” she said.
Aware of the intense emotions involved, Bell hopes to maintain a communal vibe for Fels.
“We certainly appreciate how people feel,” she said. “And we are trying to make a sale to another nonprofit that will be offering critical services to families in the community.”
Prepared to take her petition to anyone with clout, Conn wants the current setup left alone.
“I have adapted to being alone,” the widow said, “but the other seniors need help. I am doing this for them.”
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
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