photo by: Mike Yoder

Children at the Ballard Center, 708 Elm St. in North Lawrence, use small shovels to kick off a ceremonial groundbreaking for an addition to its building on Thursday, March 28, 2024. An 1,800-square-foot addition will house the Ballard Center’s family stabilization programs, including new pantry space and areas for staff and volunteers to organize donations.

For the leader of the Ballard Center, the noise of kids playing in one of the North Lawrence nonprofit’s two outdoor playgrounds was a fitting backdrop to a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building addition on Thursday.

The adults, meanwhile, were squeezed into the smaller of the two playground spaces. Ballard CEO Kyle Roggenkamp called that a reflection of the nonprofit’s mission since 1964 — that it’s always all about the kids. Fittingly, the kids in attendance were the ones who put shovels to dirt and kicked off the groundbreaking.

The Ballard Center, with help from community leaders and Gov. Laura Kelly, was marking the beginning of its project to add an 1,800-square-foot standalone building that will house an ADA-accessible food and clothing pantry and a dedicated volunteer space for organizing donations. The current pantry is located in the main building in a space leaders with the Ballard Center have previously told the Journal-World is simply too small for its clients.

photo by: Ballard Center

A rendering of a planned addition at the Ballard Center, which would add a standalone pantry space for community members.

Moving the pantry out of the main building will allow the Ballard Center to address other space-related needs — adding new office spaces for staff to meet with clients of the nonprofit’s Family Stabilization Program and, in the space previously occupied by the pantry, adding a new sensory room for kids receiving speech, occupational, play and family therapies. In some cases, Roggenkamp said those therapy sessions and family meetings have been happening in office spaces or even in hallways.

“Our capacity to serve has outpaced our physical space for decades,” Roggenkamp said. “Anyone that’s a part of Ballard knows that. We’ve always been this magical place where we have this small staff, such limited space, such limited resources — surrounded by the best people and volunteers ever, the best supporters ever — and we make this monumental impact every single year.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Lawrence chamber of commerce President and CEO Bonnie Lowe congratulates Ballard Center CEO Kyle Roggenkamp after a ceremonial groundbreaking for an addition to its building on Thursday, March 28, 2024.

Kelly lauded the Ballard Center for those efforts and also spoke about her focus on investing in early childhood education and child care at a statewide level.

She also noted the additional impact the Ballard Center will be able to make in its new space. Once it’s completed, Kelly said, the addition will allow the Ballard Center to serve another 24 kids, whose parents won’t have to worry about reducing their work hours because of a lack of access to child care.

“That’s the reality right now in Kansas and across the country,” Kelly said. “We’re living in a time of unprecedented job growth in our state, but unfortunately, not everyone who wants to work can — not because there aren’t enough job opportunities, but because there isn’t any child care available.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Lawrence Mayor Bart Littlejohn, left, and Gov. Laura Kelly visit during a ceremonial groundbreaking at the Ballard Center, 708 Elm St., in North Lawrence for a building addition on Thursday, March 28, 2024.

Kelly wasn’t the only one to highlight the Ballard Center’s success despite a limited building space. So did Lawrence Mayor Bart Littlejohn, who called the nonprofit a “jewel in our city.”

Littlejohn rattled off a list of service statistics from 2023 illustrating the scope and depth of the Ballard Center’s work. That includes that there were 171 children in the nonprofit’s early childhood education program, 1,299 households that received rent and utility assistance, and 8,854 individuals who utilized pantry services.

Other local leaders who spoke as part of the groundbreaking included Douglas County Commission Chair Karen Willey, who highlighted the county’s investment in agencies like this one when allocating American Rescue Plan Act funding back in 2022. The Ballard Center received $400,000 in ARPA funds for the expansion project.

Bonnie Lowe, the president and CEO of the Lawrence chamber of commerce, also spoke about how much of an impact the Ballard Center has on local economic development by providing quality, accessible child care.

“We are stronger together, and Ballard’s mission of partnering with others who also provide services in the area of early childhood care, health care (and) the arts and history, to name just a few, enables these children and their families to live fuller and richer lives,” Lowe said.

No timeline for the work on the Ballard Center expansion project has been released.