Volunteers transform ex-Camden bar to day-care center

Early Wednesday, the former Holmes Lounge & Garden was a drab wood-frame and stucco building on North 27th Street in East Camden.

Its mirrored bar and covered patio - where customers including Patti LaBelle, Allen Iverson, and Boyz II Men once enjoyed smooth jazz and hard crabs - were idle.

That changed with the arrival of more than 100 volunteers from corporate and nonprofit groups who gave the former popular restaurant a makeover - and a new purpose.

Whirring saws, hammers, and fresh paint quickly helped to transform the building into an early child-care and education center.

By afternoon, neighbors and passing motorists were surprised to see playful murals, newly planted gardens, and a bright blue, yellow, and green building exterior.

The center will be operated by Respond Inc., a nonprofit agency that runs a dozen other day cares - 10 in Camden, and one each in Merchantville and Winslow Township.

Respond received the help of 15 members of City Year, an international nonprofit organization, and 100 volunteers from Aramark, a Philadelphia professional services company that provides food to stadiums, hospitals, schools, and correctional facilities.

"Today we are making it better together," Respond executive director Wilbert Mitchell told the volunteers before the work began.

"We're making it better for 45 infants who will attend this facility," he said. "When you talk about economic development, that's what we're doing today. We're helping people be self-sufficient."

Just a reminder, though, "this is a work day," joked Aramark's chairman and chief executive officer, Joseph Neubauer. "It's not a day off."

Changing a lounge into a day-care center "is a transformative event," said Christopher Farr, a City Year member who helped assemble the materials needed for the project. "This is awesome."

Nearby, a small army of Aramark managers, chefs, dietitians, cashiers, and human-resource professionals slathered paint on walls, wielded hammers, created murals, and assembled benches from stacks of wood.

"I'll spend the day doing this lime-green paint in different parts around the building," said Debbie Malaczewski, a regional administrative assistant for an Aramark vice president, as she brightened the building front.

"It's very rewarding," added Malaczewski, 52, of Cherry Hill. "This will help moms go back to work."

A few feet away, Chanoa Santiago, a company recruitment manager, concentrated on blue paint.

"This is my third year of doing projects like this," said Santiago, 30. "I look forward to it. It's amazing that one company can make so much change."

In North Philadelphia, another 100 employees worked Wednesday at the Village of the Arts and Humanities Center in the 2500 block of Germantown Avenue, where they transformed an empty lot into a community garden.

"This is just a starting point," said A.J. Jordan, Aramark's director of community relations, as he walked through the Camden work site. Company human resources officials "may come back to connect people to job training and jobs," he said.

Work on the center is expected to be complete by late June and enrollment should start in September, said Mitchell, of Respond, which purchased the site four years ago.

"The Holmes Lounge will now be a 'learning lounge' " for children from two weeks to 21/2 years old, he said.

On the covered patio, Bruce Walton, a vice president who oversees the dining and catering accounts of Fortune 500 companies, assembled mural-decorated wood benches.

"They split us up," he said, smiling. "The artistic ones go over there, and those who do the light construction are over here.

"Being able to transform this place in five or six hours into a community center is amazing," he said.

Next door to the center, Andy Alvarez, manager of the All-Star Barber Shop, saw the change "as a positive thing.

"It helps the neighborhood," said Alvarez, 42, of East Camden. "I'm thinking about putting my grandsons in there. This brings more life to the neighborhood."