Curtis Park Community Center, the recipient of at least $6.4 million in grants and donations since 2001 to serve the poor, has slashed its staff amid financial concerns.
Diane Mourning, the executive director, said the facility’s board laid her off last Thursday and that a part-time worker was the only person left answering phones.
The center has been a fixture of Denver’s Curtis Park neighborhood since it opened as a nonprofit 40 years ago.
Mourning said the facility serves 11,000 people annually.
It provides services for the elderly, infancy programs and crime-victim assistance. A child-care program shut down this year because of renovations.
“It was a stalwart in the community,” Mourning said.
Virginia “Gin” Butler, a member of the center’s board, said “core programs,” such as providing food to the homeless, are continuing and a consultant is reviewing operations.
“We’re only running programs fully funded by grants,” she said. “There was not the money for a number of administrative staff and so we furloughed them.” Butler said she didn’t know how many employees were affected.
Aurelio Martinez, a community activist, said he is still renting a gym at the center and teaching boxing to youth there. But other programs seemed defunct, he said.
“There is nobody there right now running the Curtis Park organization,” he said.
City Councilwoman Carla Madison’s office said Tuesday that it was unaware of changes at the center, which is in her district.
The center received at least $6 million in “gifts, grants and contributions” between 2001 and 2004, according to tax records. The city of Denver gave a $170,000 grant this year to renovate a child-care center and clear it of asbestos. The United Way gave $200,000, half of which went for renovating the child-care building.
Tax records also show that a former director, James Willis, tried to help the center in 2004 with a $21,000 personal loan.
“Frankly, they should have closed three years ago,” Mourning said. “You can look at the financials and figure that out.”
