A fire last month at Lincoln Park Community Center in Penn Hills has derailed several community programs and summer activities, the center's top official said Thursday.
"The community has really lost out," executive director Joyce Davis said.
The June 1 fire gutted a playroom at the rear of the center and caused smoke and water damage to other parts of the building, resulting in at least $75,000 in damage. Officials have ruled the cause arson.
Scheduled to reopen in late August, the structure houses a branch of the Penn Hills Library, a dentist office, a food and clothing pantry, a recently renovated gymnasium, the Allegheny Intermediate Unit Family Support Center and child-care and voter-education centers.
A summer program to provide breakfasts and lunches for children has been moved to a nearby multipurpose center. The program has been cut in half, serving meals to about 50 instead of the more than 100 children per day.
"There is not enough space" at the multipurpose center, Davis explained. "We are feeding the kids in the summer day camp program, but we haven't been able to recruit more."
The food pantry is scheduled to resume distribution this month in the center parking lot, Davis said.
But by the time the center reopens, it will be too late for children's summer programs.
The community center gives kids something to do, said Tracey Douglas, of Lincoln. "It keeps them off the streets. That's what counts."
A summer day camp sponsored by the family support center has been shifted to the multipurpose center, said Darlene Hopkins, site supervisor. The camp serves 52 children, ages 5-12.
"The children haven't even noticed," Hopkins said.
But many other programs have been moved to the family support center's Wilkinsburg site, she said.
Penn Hills Library director Ed Mandell estimates it will cost $5,500 to clean computers, telephones and other electrical equipment and another $3,100 to clean about 9,000 books housed at the branch library.
The library will provide a bookmobile to the center from 10 a.m. to noon every Wednesday from July 14 through Aug. 25, Mandell said.
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