Buena Park : Girls Club, Abuse Center May Soon Lose Quarters

A child abuse prevention center and a Girls Club soon will find themselves without a home when the Buena Park School District terminates their lease.

Both groups say they will have a tough time finding a new location within their budgets when the school district terminates its $16,000-a-year lease with the city.

“It puts us in a very difficult position,” said Cyndie Martin, director of the Girls Club of North Orange County.

The school district wants to sell the $3-million Sullivan Community Center at 7631 Melrose Ave. to pay for the maintenance of its seven schools, said Jack Townsend, the district business manager. The Sullivan Center’s buildings are old, in poor condition and cost the district too much money to keep up, Townsend said Thursday. The only potential buyer the district has negotiated with is the city, he said.

While several groups now using the Sullivan Center are school-related and would be transferred to another school, the Girls Club and the abuse prevention center are private, nonprofit corporations. Before their leases terminate June 30, they hope to get donations of office space, trailers or money to relocate.

The Girls Club hopes the city will extend its $3,000-a-year lease on a month-to-month basis until September, a spokeswoman said.

The Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Center, which matches volunteers with families who have a child abuse problem, is in the same position.

The child abuse center is located in its own trailer. Rent for the land is $109 per month, said director Gail Nugent-Wallace. “We just don’t have enough in our budget to afford much higher rent,” Nugent-Wallace said.