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~. CON`" '1NG ~~~~ SOW pc~C~?!'1'~S cre~tec! a place ~®~ ~ic~S-ara~9 -~~e~vtSelves. inters can be cold and lonely in upstate New York, and Renee Edel- man, trapped inside all day with her one-year-old daugh- ter, yearned to break through the isolation. She wondered, "Where can I take Meredith to play with other children? Where can I go to meet other moms?" Her town of Amherst, a sprawl- ing Buffalo suburb, offered virtu- ally no structured recreational ser- vicesfor children under six. Many neighborhood parks were run- down; some were dangerous. Edel- man Considered going to one of the fast-food franchises that have play areas. But she doubted that a restaurant would offer her much sense of community. "What I wanted was a safe, bright room that had lots of toys and educational games," Edelman says, "a place where parents and kids could get to know one an- other and become friends. So I de- cided to make a place, an indoor family playground." Edelman, 36, had no profes- sional training in child develop- ment or community organization; she had been a geriatrics social worker before she became an at- home mom. Her financial re- sources were modest. "My hus- band is a scientist at SUNY Buffalo, but it's been a struggle to live on one income." Nonetheless, she began to ex- plore her options. She learned that Amherst's town government had bought an abandoned school build- ing for S1; the town plaruled to in- vest 52.5 million to turn the school into what would later be named the Harlem Road Commu- nity Center. Only one room was still available. At a town meeting in 1990, Edelman asked whether she could turn the room into a play space. To her surprise, she was granted permission to use the room as a new play-and-leartung center. Edelman named it the Fam- ily Room. She wrangled carpeting from the town, asked her in-laws for a contribution (they gave $150), and asked neighbors to do- nate toys. The first day. "On the community center's opening day, inJanuary, 1991, the only people who showed up were me, a friend, and our kids," Edel- man recalls. Fortunately a TV crew was there that day to cover the cen- ter's opening, and the crew stopped by the Family Room and taped a small spot. In the follow- _ ing weeks, the mothers and chil- e dren began to arrive. Kathleen Burkard, 37, an ele- mentary school teacher for ten years, who had decided to stay , _~ c 'c 76 PMEN7S LWUARI' 1993 "Creating the Family Room brought us together," say the mothers who donated their #iime and talents.