Parent, advocate, board member and now employee.
In the past year or so Leslie Farrer has had a variety of relationships with the River Forest Community Center, the organization that runs a popular childcare program at the River Forest Civic Center building at 8020 Madison St.
First, she was a parent with a child in the childcare program. Then last summer she became an outspoken advocate for the Community Center at meetings of the River Forest Civic Center Authority, which was trying, ultimately successfully, to wrest control of the Civic Center from the Community Center which had basically run the building for decades as its largest tenant.
In October, Farrer was appointed to the Community Center’s board of directors. This year she applied for the Community Center executive director job. She didn’t get that job, which went to Jonathan Livingston, but last month Livingston and the Community Center board hired Farrer to a new position at the Community Center, director of operations.
In that role Farrer replaces the Community Center’s long time bookkeeper Jane Brennan who retired a couple of months ago and a former office manager who left earlier this year.
“I am doing all of the bookkeeping, so all the accounts payable, accounts receivable, I’m handling all the social media, I am going to be taking over processing a lot of the payroll, working with the front desk team, we’re going to be reorganizing the office,” Farrer said. “Anything that comes up that’s not directly related to the childhood program.”
As an employee, Farrer had to quit her position on the board of directors.
Farrer said she met Livingston last winter and was immediately impressed. Once she found out that Livingston applied to be the new executive director, she said that she thought that Livingston was the best person for the job replacing long time executive director Dick Chappell.
“He impressed me the first time I met him,” Farrer said.
Livingston began his tenure as executive director in late May. He soon realized that he needed help. He wanted to focus on big picture things, such as beginning an aggressive fundraising campaign for the non-profit that had never before done much fundraising. The Community Center is in the midst of a campaign to celebrate its 51st year of existence by raising $51,000. It has raised $13,107 as of Aug. 10.
Without a bookkeeper or office manager, Livingston, with a background in academia and consulting, found himself bogged down by a lot of mundane operations things.
““I was doing two jobs or more at once,” Livingston said. “It created a task load for me that was just not sustainable.”
He realized quickly that he needed help.
“On top of being executive director I had been doing all the operational and financial, accounts payable work it was just too much, I was just drowning in it, it was clear as day that I needed an operations director so that I could really focus on, really prioritize the things I that needed to ensure that the organization stays healthy and continues to be healthier,” Livingston said.
Farrer was, however, hired in July and began work at the Community Center on July 27.
Livingston has already noticed the difference.
“It’s just been a night and day difference to have that sort of help,” Livingston said.
Livingston said Chappell focused on operations when he was the executive director of the Community Center. He said that is not typically the focus of an executive director.
Farrer, who grew up in northern Michigan, moved to River Forest in 2020. She was initially trained as a pastry chef, and earned an associates degree in restaurant, culinary and restaurant management from Northwestern Michigan College in 2008 before earning a certificate in pastry arts from the French Pastry School. She worked as a pastry chef in Chicago for eight years, including four years at the Trump International Hotel and Towers from 2008 to 2017, but more recently has worked in operations and bookkeeping.
“I love the team here,” Farrer said.
The Community Center has 27 employees, 14 of whom are full time.
The Community Center continues to operate out of the River Forest Civic Center, a building that the Village of River Forest looks set to take over in September. Livingston and the leadership of the Community Center have been supportive of the Civic Center Authority dissolving itself and turning the building over the village which seems to be better positioned to raise the money necessary to perform needed upgrades, a new roof for one, on the 70-year-old building.
“I think it’s going to be fine,” Farrer said. “I think they’re doing it to support everybody here.”