Funcare closes after 19 years
By Ken Powers Contributing Writer

Northborough - For the first time in 19 years, the sounds of children playing in the basement or shrieking with delight as they run around outside will not be heard in and around Northborough Town Hall.

Funcare, a half-day kindergarten program and well as an after-school, extendedday program, is not being offered to town residents by Northborough Family & Youth Services Incorporated (NFYS Inc.), a privatelyowned nonprofit organization that serves the town.

"We only had two students sign up for the kindergarten program so we had to cancel it," said Cindee Morin, codirector of NFYS-Inc. "We certainly didn't want to, but with just two families signing up their children, we really had no other choice."

Morin said the reason for the dramatic decline in interest is simple.

"We've faced declining numbers for the past three years, ever since the school district decided to off er fullday kindergarten to parents," Morin explained. "But this year, unlike the last three years, everyone who signed up for full-day kindergarten received it. Before this year there was a lottery and a waiting list, and more people didn't get it than did, so our numbers stayed pretty high."

Last year each session of Funcare (morning and afternoon) had about 25 students.

Morin said the school district still off ers half-day kindergarten for families that want it, at the Fannie E. Proctor School.

The Northborough Extended Day Program (NEDP) has been slightly aff ected by the discontinuing of the Funcare program.

"The kindergarten students at the various schools, who in years past would have come to Funcare at Town Hall to await being picked up by their parents will go directly to the Extended Day Program in the school they're at," Morin said. "And the NEDP program is still going great. Our numbers are as high as they've ever been and we've got a waiting list at every school."

While the termination of the Funcare program is understandable, given the reasons, it still leaves a void.

"It's so quiet around here now," said Mary Jean Fredette, executive director to the Board of Selectmen and the town administrator. "We don't know what we're going to do now in regard to Halloween. We used to get dressed up, decorate the pumpkins and break out the candy at the end of October for the kids. Now there aren't going to be kids running around in here, so I wonder if we'll do any of that. I guess we'll do it, but it will be done to a lesser degree."

Fredette said the town has not yet decided what to do or how to use the space in the basement where Funcare operated.

"I'm sure it will get used by the town in some capacity," Fredette said. "There are too many pressing space issues to just let it sit unused for too long."