Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic – assisted by community donations and led by a tireless and dedicated staff -- Kennett Area Community Service (KACS) provided food, housing, and social service support to those in our community who most needed it.

As the needs of those less fortunate in Chester County grow, so will KACS, which is currently in a capital campaign to raise $15 million for the construction of a new, 24,000 square-foot facility on West Cypress Street. Kennett Square Life recently spoke with KACS Executive Director Leah Reynolds and volunteers Anne Moran, Lynn Majarian, and Will Majarian about the project, its early benefactors, the improvements the new building will bring, the message of the campaign, and the dreams for its future.

Kennett Square Life: What first precipitated the necessity for a new location?

Leah: KACS’ need for a new home was necessitated by the convergence of several factors. COVID-19 brought about a huge increase in the community’s need for food and shelter, and we didn’t have enough staff to accommodate those requests, so we were forced to increase our staff at the same time the community’s need for food and shelter grew.

At the same time COVID-19 was having a major impact, we had several disasters at our current Cedar Street location. There was a flood in both the food cupboard and the resource center, which led to the appearance of mold in the resource center that required us to remove everything on the first floor: offices, conference room, and the shower and laundry we had available for the homeless to use. Our building experienced floods again this past year because our drains and sump pumps were not hooked up to any battery or generator, which have since been corrected.

It was a convergence of these setbacks added to the economics of our country – the lack of affordable housing, the rise of grocery costs and gasoline costs, and the impact of all these growing realities on the working poor – that led us to consider the need for a new facility.

It was during these challenging times that KACS received assistance from two wonderful people. How did the partnership between KACS and Mike and Nancy Pia family begin?

Leah: After COVID-19 began on March 13, 2020, the Pias called me that Saturday afternoon and said they were watching the news and wanted to help KACS. I told them I needed food and cash to remain open and keep helping people. They sent $50,000 to KACS that day. Over time, the Pias would stay in touch with us, and after we had the flood and mold and no office space for the staff that kept growing, Mike and Nancy called me and said that they wanted to give KACS almost six acres less than a half-mile from our current location for a new building and $500,000 to get started.

Will, in your role as the chairman of the building committee, you and your colleagues are partnering with several local contractors on the planning, design and eventual construction of the new facility. Who are those partners?

Will: Civil engineering for the project is being done by Tom Schreier from Hillcrest Associates in Landenberg, and our architects are John Meadows and Paul Sgroi from Bernardon in Wilmington. Our construction manager-consultants are Richard and Nick Basillio from Mobac, Inc. here in Kennett Square, and our owner’s representative is Matt Eskridge from Turner & Townsend in Maryland, who was also the owner’s representative for the construction of the Kennett Library. It was a conscious decision by the building committee to hire local firms as our contractors, largely because they are already familiar with KACS and its mission and because this project allows each of these firms to have some skin in the game in the construction of KACS’ new home.

The new facility will be a superb example of how form follows function. How did you arrive at what will become the architectural and design layout for the new 24,000 facility.

Will: KACS is now housed on what used to be a small residence and a former auto body garage, so it’s not conducive to just providing food but supporting people’s lives. When we first started the process of designing the building, we brought the KACS staff together with the building committee. My message to the staff was, “Forget about where you’re working now. Here is a clean sheet of paper. Think about what you do and how you do it, not in the current building, but in a perfect world, how would you design a facility that supports all the processes that KACS provides?”

That is how the architectural design of the building was created. It really is “form follows function.” We spent hours talking about the entrance of the new building: how we will manage the flow of the participants coming into the building. That is something that KACS has never had the luxury of doing, and now with a clean sheet of paper we can design a building that actually works.

While state and county funding for the project are expected to account for $9 million toward the total construction costs for the new facility, there is still $6 million that needs to be raised through a capital campaign that is appealing to foundations, corporations and private donors. Describe the narrative of the capital campaign.

Lynn: This campaign is about the community. Yes, we will require the efforts of the large donors, but we also need everyone to be a part of this – as part of our effort to share the message that what KACS does affects the entire community.

Anne: My husband Michael and I met last March with Leah and Lynn to consider the idea of me co-chairing the capital campaign, and that’s when I heard about the Pia’s contributions, Leah’s and Lynn’s dreams for a new facility and the big question of how to reach potential donors. It became obvious that this was something I could do in my area – reach the townships in the area of West Marlborough Township where I live – all of whom are within five miles of KACS and right in their backyard. This is something meaningful I can do. I have lived here for 40 years, and this community means a lot to me.

A question for Lynn and Anne. You are both co-chairing the capital campaign, but your work with this agency goes back several years. Talk about what first led you to become a part of Kennett Area Community Service.

Anne: This is a hard story for me to talk about, but the thing that keeps coming back in my mind was that about five years ago, I came to do some volunteering at KACS on a miserable day, and there I saw a young mother standing in a driving rainstorm rain with her two children beside her, because there was no inside waiting room. I tried to make eye contact with her, but she was embarrassed and sad, and I thought, “This is terrible. These are the working poor and it’s heartbreaking to see this happening five miles from where I live.” On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, every client must wait their turn outside in hail, rain, sleet, snow or ninety-degree weather. I am so blessed I will never know and can only imagine what that young woman was truly feeling that day or indeed, what every person that walks through those doors looking for help feels. The current building/buildings are woefully inadequate on so many levels. 

That’s what has pushed me to do whatever I can do to raise this money for the new building. I am drawn to make this happen, and it is because of Leah and Lynn and their drive and their vision and their empathy and their love for everyone.

Lynn: I was a stay-at-home mom and volunteered for many years, such as serving as a PTA president at my children’s school. When they both went off to college, I didn’t know what I was going to with myself, so I began to volunteer at local organizations. In 2014, a friend of mine asked me to volunteer at KACS’ Food Cupboard. I walked in the door that day and I never left. I joined the KACS board in 2018 and served as the board president three times.

My favorite part of being at KACS has been getting to know the people who benefit from the services that we provide. Will and I have led a fortunate life, one that I never figured would end up like it has, and now is my time to give back. I need to be with the people we serve and they need us.

When is KACS’ new home scheduled to open?

Will: I would estimate that the new building will open during the first half of 2026. We are doing very well with respect to the building design and getting the land development approvals that we need. We’re allowing the capital campaign to catch up with the building project, so if everything goes the way we hope it will, we will start going out to bids to contractors in September, and hopefully break ground in December. The building process will take between 12 to 14 months, which will be followed by moving from one location to another. The earlier the better; we can do so much more in this new building. We need to be in it as quickly as we can.

Let’s fast forward a few years when the new home for KACS is celebrating another birthday. When you imagine a fully functioning agency thriving at peak performance, what do you see?

Leah: I see dozens of our partner agencies joining us side by side, all available to assist the people who will come to the building by meeting their health care needs, their housing needs, their nutritional needs, their personal needs and providing resources such as our Bridges Out of Poverty programs and our financial literacy workshops. Once we have classrooms and conference rooms and more resources to accommodate everyone, we will be better able to lift up the families and households in our community.

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Together, we build hope.

To learn more about the new building project for Kennett Area Community Service – and to make a private or public donation to the capital campaign -- visit www.kacsimpact.org.

Join the party.

KACS’ Bourbon & Brix

September 14, 2024 at 6 p.m.

The Farm at Casa Carmen, 49 Camino Way, West Grove, Pa. 19390

Join Kennett Area Community Service for an evening of tastings while strolling the charming grounds of the Farm at Casa Carmen. Bourbon tastings will be curated and presented by Executive Bourbon Steward Lanny Lewis and will include five exquisite bourbons from across the country. Sponsorship levels will be available. To learn more, visit www.kacsimpact.org/fundraiser.