For 43 years, the East Allen Family Resource Center has operated under various names and provided various services to people in New Haven and eastern Allen County.

They used to teach GED classes there. From time to time, the facility has had a Head Start program and craft nights for adults, and it was once a distribution center for commodities, back when the government gave away cheese and butter and such.

Since the mid-1980s, though, the center has focused on children, offering a pre-school, after-school care and an all-day program during the summer. It takes care of about 100 children over the course of the year.

Through it all, most clients have been low-income. For example, 98 percent of all parents with children in child care at the center have jobs, but 83 percent make less than 150 percent of what is regarded as the poverty level.

For those people, who can’t afford regular commercial child care, the East Allen center in Riverhaven has been about the only game in town in the New Haven area, and demand has increased dramatically since last fall. Where else can people send their kids after school for only $15 a week?

Last year, because of finances, the center canceled its summer program. That produced a flurry of sad stories.

One mother had to send her child to live with an aunt in Ohio during the summer because she couldn’t afford child care elsewhere. Another mother just had to leave her child at home alone all day, locked in the house, even though the child was too young to be left alone.

This year, the summer program returned, but the center had to increase its price to $50 a week from $25. The price, subsidized by grants from area foundations, is still remarkably low. But half the parents took their children out of the program because they couldn’t afford it.

And a few weeks ago, the center got some bad news. One of its benefactors, reacting to the hard times, had decided to focus more on people’s basic needs, such as food and housing. It denied a $25,000 grant for the center.

The center tightened its belt. Then, on Monday, came more bad news. Another foundation had denied a $30,000 grant.

"The first was bad news," said Sharon Wilson, the director of the center. "The second was a tragedy."

What does it mean? Does the center face the possibility of having to close, leaving scores of low-income families with no child-care options?

"I hate to answer that question," Wilson said.

There are options. The center could just raise prices, but that would price many families, who are barely making ends meet as it is, out of the market. They’d just leave their children at home.

The center could decide to start accepting state and federal money. It would probably qualify; it’s nationally accredited – something the center did awhile back to show that, though it is a grass-roots organization, it is quality.

But then it would have to charge standard rates, and its clients would have to get on a waiting list for assistance. And while they were waiting, they still wouldn’t be able to afford the fees. Their kids would be left at home alone or sent to stay with relatives.

"We really need to raise more awareness of what we’re doing and the need for funds," Wilson says.

"In Fort Wayne, you can go to a multitude of places and agencies for services," Wilson says. But in the New Haven and eastern Allen County area, the center is one of the few resources people have, she says.

"We’ve cut our budget to the bone," Wilson says. "We’ve always operated on a shoestring," but now the shoestring is even thinner.

Without some help, the only option is to cut programs, Wilson says.

Making a call like that is hard.

Deciding which children to turn away can be hard.