In January, Karen Dylewski retired as director of the Howard Mohr Community Center after nearly 20 years in the role. As director, Dylewski helped provide services for seniors, host childcare programs, and organize resources for locals.
When Dylewski took a step back from the community center last year, Assistant Director Brenda Powers and the center’s four other staff members filled in. Though she’s been acting director since, Powers was announced as the community center’s official new director after the village council unanimously approved a resolution for her appointment at a Sept. 28 meeting.
Owned and operated by the village, the community center offers its food box and pantry program for any Forest Park resident with proof of residency, hosts regular health fairs and provides childcare before and after school for kids in kindergarten through sixth grade. It also hosts senior services and programming — seniors meet at the community center every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to noon.
“A lot of people don’t know what we do here,” Powers told the Review. “We want to encourage everybody that, if they need answers to anything, just give us a call. We never say, ‘No.’” And if the community center doesn’t have the answer, “let us find out because the more information we know, the better it is for the community.”
As director, Powers said she wants to bring back programming the community center had before Covid, including more rentals of their space in the evenings and on weekends. Powers said, before Covid, many locals booked part of the community center for birthday parties, family reunions, meetings for disabled veterans, Cub and Boy Scouts and local organizations.
“It’s an interesting job. It’s never the same, and that’s why I’ve stayed so long,” Powers said.
Powers has been a part of the community center since 2005, when she started as the after-school care coordinator. She then served as after-school care director for several years and, after Covid, became assistant director of the community center as a whole.
“I had worked here for so long that I knew the day-to-day operations of everything,” Powers said.
As assistant director, Powers planned senior trips and events, helped people with benefit access to get discounts on license plates and free rides on public transit, and worked every day with the kids who attended after-school care — along with Meghan Dowdle, who’s worked at the center for over a decade and became assistant director when Powers became interim director.
“Everyone here is cross-trained,” Powers said of the community center’s five staff members. “If I were not here, Meghan knows what to do. If Meghan’s not here, the rest of us pick up.”
Though Dylewski was a pillar of the community center for nearly two decades, the community center will still operate the same without her “great personality. She’s a great person,” Powers said. “Even though she’s retired, I want [people] to know they can still come here for services.”
Powers said her favorite things about the community center are the variety and the people.
“Some days it’s so busy, you’re going, going, going, and you don’t realize what time it is,” Powers said. She added, “You learn so much from the people because they’re from all walks of life — they’re seniors, they’re young parents. It’s very interesting to get everybody’s perspective.”