Touring the Family Resource Center's new home

[Mom-In-Chief]

On Monday, the Family Resource Center for Eau Claire County will turn on its lights, open its doors and welcome children of the Chippewa Valley to play, learn and explore – from a new home base.

A move staff have been dreaming about for years is now official. At 9 a.m. Monday, the center will open for business from a larger, more accessible and more visible location in Oakwood Mall.

“We’ve seen the need to move for a couple years,” executive director Brook Berg told me Saturday while giving my children and me a sneak peek of the new center. “It got to the point when we were down on Heights Drive that our organization as a whole was never going to grow if we were in that location. We couldn’t serve the number of families that we wanted to.”

The new 3,000-square-foot facility, housed in the mall’s Sears Wing, allows the center to increase the size of its play groups, double the amount of parents it can accommodate in parent education classes, extend its hours and offer new classes.

Already, the facility is getting more traffic than it did from its former location, Berg said, sharing that staff had the windows blacked out during construction and just removed the covers Friday afternoon.

“More families walked by our space in two hours than in six years on Heights Drive,” Berg said.

The new space got the seal of approval from my two children. Their eyes lit up walking through the door and seeing the toys – which they were accustomed to playing with before in the old location but somehow seemed brand new when displayed here. 2-year-old Kaycee gravitated toward the play kitchen and whipped up a batch of muffins while Tyler, 4, grabbed a cart and went grocery shopping. They proceeded to make the rounds, test driving nearly every toy on the premises.

“It looks good,” Ty said when asked for his opinion of the new digs. (Kaycee concurred).

I was impressed too. The new space is open and inviting, clean and modern. We’ll definitely be popping in for “drop in and play” the next time we’re at the mall.

And that’s just a small part of the Family Resource Center’s services. With classes, home visits, workshops, play groups and more, it truly is a resource for all. Berg is hoping the new location will allow the community the chance to better understand its mission and vision.

“We serve all families,” she said. “Every parent needs support in their role.”

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Want to see the Family Resource Center’s new site for yourself? Mark your calendars – an open house is planned from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, at the center’s new location in Oakwood Mall.

[Nicole Pederson]

We look forward to playgroups on Mondays starting tomorrow... yay!  Looks like a super fun place to play.  We'll also do the drop in and play thing especially during the cold winters ":)