The Mini O’Beirne Crisis Nursery sits behind a white picket fence in a quiet, historic neighborhood on North Seventh Street. For nearly four decades the nonprofit has worked to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing free 24-hour emergency childcare to families in need.
The nursery has been a neighbor to Fletcher Farrar and his wife, Mary Jessup, for the 36 years they’ve lived in Enos Park. “From our front window we’ve watched countless children being pushed in strollers down the sidewalk, and I remember helping neighbors in need take a child there, sometimes late at night,” Farrar said. “Mini O’Beirne has always been a good neighbor.”
MOCN is set to be a bigger neighbor soon. It recently received a $250,000 Justice Ben Miller grant that will help it increase capacity in its emergency childcare nursery and grow its family support programs, including support groups, activity nights, parent education and referrals for additional services. About 20% of the funds may be used for a new building.
“One of the most important ways in which we have been using the funds recently has been to bring in additional staff to assist so that our turn-away numbers will decrease,” said executive director Chriss Wilson. “If we have three people on staff, we can take 10 children. Whereas, we typically have two staff, and our limit would be eight kids.”
Thanks to funding that allowed the nursery to purchase an additional lot and a planned gift of 1.2 acres from Farrar and Jessup, MOCN will be able to continue to expand its footprint and services and plans to construct a new facility adjacent to its current location.
“We are thrilled to be able to stay in the Enos Park neighborhood, where we can design our own space based on the needs of the families and community we serve,” Wilson said. “Our goal is to increase the number of children we can serve at one time to meet the needs of more families.”
The land for the expansion is multiple vacant parcels on Sixth Street between Enterprise and Bergen, backing up to MOCN’s current property.
Farrar has held the property for a long time, using some of it as a garden, and it is rich in history. “Years ago an old-timer in the neighborhood told me he remembered when sheep grazed on it,” Farrar said. “The block was part of the Hatch estate, and before that the Enos estate, combined when Ozias Hatch, Illinois Secretary of State, married Julia Enos in December 1860. They married at the large home of Julia’s parents, the Pascal Enos home, which was on Seventh Street, a few doors south of the current Mini O’Beirne Crisis Nursery. Abraham Lincoln may have attended that wedding, which took place after he was elected president but before he left Springfield for Washington, D.C.”
History is in the making for MOCN as it moves forward with its expansion plans, which will approximately double its current space. The organization is working with architect John Shafer of John Shafer and Associates Inc. on design and structural needs.
“Our goals are to keep the home-like feel of the space and to structurally blend in with the neighborhood while creating more space,” Wilson said. “We have children coming to us who sometimes need to be separated from others or need to be in a more sensory-friendly zone. Though we do our best to accommodate those children now, our space is limited. It will be wonderful to host the majority of our Family Support Services in our own building and for our staff to be able to meet with parents and caregivers privately.”
After design plans are finalized, construction costs will factor into plans for an upcoming capital campaign. Plans are expected to be complete by year’s end.
In her four years at MOCN, Wilson has seen the organization’s impact on families and the community and looks forward to being able to serve more families. She said it has been wonderful to see the compassion the organization’s staff consistently shows to the families they serve.
“They care about these children and their families,” she said. “Seeing their hard work by helping a family get the break they need, a child having a safe place to stay and a parent saying, ‘I knew I could call MOCN,’ when they felt they had no one else is proof that we are all making a difference.
Wilson said she hopes people will help spread the word about MOCN.
“It is going to take the support and efforts of the community to help us build this fabulous building where children will be cared for and protected and where parents and caregivers grow in their role,” she said.
