Montville’s Youth Services settling into new home

Montville — Montville’s Youth Service Bureau is settling into new digs at the Fair Oaks community center a month after leaving its old Route 32 location.

The department, which has three full-time employees and runs an after-school care program for almost 70 Montville children, had occupied a small building with inadequate parking across from Town Hall for more than two decades.

Town officials began talking about moving the bureau to the former Fair Oaks school building, which has been mostly empty since it closed in the early 1990s, several years ago. The school is at 836 Old Colchester Road in Oakdale.

The bureau finally made the move this summer and has been using two classrooms and the gymnasium for kids’ programs and as offices to administer its counseling, leadership and community service programs and a parent-toddler playgroup since

late August.

Youth Services Coordinator Barbara Lockhart said the Fair Oaks building gives her staff and the kids a lot more elbow room and puts them closer to Montville High School and the center of town.

“It’s safer, we have grass … and it also makes our relationship with the schools more positive,” Lockhart said.

The town’s public works department repaved the Fair Oaks parking lot over the summer and has been making repairs to the building to accommodate the departments.

The new location, which is in walking distance from the high school, is making it easier for students to volunteer and tutor at the after school program with younger children.

“A lot of them are seniors who came here when they were younger and want to give back,” Lockhart said.

Lockhart said the move to the Fair Oaks building is likely permanent, a decision that partially solves lingering questions about how the building should be used.

The school building is also used as a polling place during elections and as a community center.

“It was a location issue,” Lockhart said. “This is at the center of town, geographically.”

Montville Mayor Ronald McDaniel said the town has no plan for the old Route 32 Youth Service building.

The building could be sold or repurposed, he said.