The Lamoille Family Center is expanding to a larger facility to provide more opportunities for teens, young adults and their families. The move, however, is still three to four years away due to zoning and fundraising issues, said Executive Director Scott Johnson.

According to Johnson, the Family Center is now overextended and has outgrown its facility on Cady’s Falls Road. The Center provides different areas of services for families from prenatal care through support for young adults with families. The Center serves around 1,600 families a year through a wide range of services, including children’s integrated services such as early intervention, child care and family support. Adult services comprise programs for high school students and for pregnant teens.

Parent education and childcare training are very important services of the Family Center. “Expanding the child care center would be the most important and crucial,” said Johnson. “Right now we’re really packed into this space. It’s too tight. There is not enough office space for our 35 staff members.”

The overcrowding issues would be remedied with the planned expansion. “The current facility is 5,000 square feet,” Johnson said. “With the new facility there will be approximately 15,000 square feet, three times bigger than [the] current building.”

The new facility will be just down the road near the C.R.E.W. Ice Rink on Bridge Street on the outskirts of Morrisville on a 7.9 acre lot, between Lake Lamoille and the Lamoille River.

The move will allow the organization to expand its already comprehensive services. “The new building will support more private space and [the] opportunity for the community to use the new space, and better-quality child care slots would open up,” Johnson said.

With the added space the Center will be able to bring the Learning Together education program back on site. The Learning Together and Families Learning Together programs offer educational and support services to pregnant, parenting and at-risk young adults. The Family Center also runs the after-school Teen Center in the First Congressional Church in Morrisville.

Johnson thinks the projected timeline is reasonable: “This year will be dealing with zoning laws; 2013 will be feasibility; 2014 will be capital fund raising; and then the shovel will be in the ground, and 2015 will be moving in.”

The Family Center is funded through State grants, contracts and donations from individual corporations and foundations, according to Johnson.