Strawberry Mill Day Care may close
Published on June 2nd, 1999
STONEHAM, MA- Sixty families depending on child care at the Strawberry Mills Day Care Center on the Woodland Road campus of Boston Regional Medical Center (BRMC) may soon need to look elsewhere.
The Melrose YMCA saved the day care center after the hospital declared bankruptcy in February 1999, but now the future of the facility is again in question.
State Representative Michael Festa of Melrose represents precincts 4, 5 and 6 in Stoneham. He helped orchestrate a deal in February between the hospital and its creditors to keep the day care center open until June.
Creditors have not foreclosed on the hospital, which continues to operate as an owner-debtor in possession. Both the hospital and the creditors are looking for a buyer. But the hospital, under its bankruptcy agreement, could not take on any additional expenses, and Strawberry Mills was subsidized by the hospital and staffed by hospital employees.
Concerned Strawberry Mills parents contacted Festa who contacted Richard Whitworth, President of the Melrose YMCA. A deal was worked out in which the YMCA pays the staff and runs the day care center in the same location on the BRMC campus, but pays no rent to the hospital.
The creditors agreed to this agreement through June. Both sides had expected a third party to buy the whole property by now. No one has, and the agreement with the YMCA is due.
Forty-five kids ranging in age from eight weeks to five-years-old are cared for by Strawberry Mills staff of 15 teachers each day. Now the school may close unless Festa, the YMCA, and representatives of the hospital and its creditors can work something out.
"I am bringing up the possibility of a month extension to get through June and then possibly an agreement for the 'Y' to run Strawberry Mills until the property is sold," Festa said.
Festa is confident that most prospective buyers will want to continue an existing on site day care program.
The program began as a day care facility for the children of BRMC employees, but the character of the center has changed, according to Melrose YMCA Day Care Director Faye Dibono.
"We feel we are providing a valuable service to the town of Stoneham," Dibono said.
Strawberry Mills charges standard YMCA rates — $200 a week for an infant and $150 for a pre-school child. The school runs five days a week, ten hours a day.
"Everything has run smoothly since we have taken over," Dibono said. "We hope we won't have to move."
Negotiations which began last week will determine the fate of Strawberry Mills.
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