By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | December 10, 2008
Students from the nearby De Marillac Academy have P.E. class in the basketball gym of the Salvation Army's Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in San Francisco Photo by Brad Zweerink
SAN FRANCISCO - From the street, the Salvation Army's Ray & Joan Kroc Community Center on Turk Street doesn't stand out from the rest of San Francisco's gritty Tenderloin district.
Only after you get inside next to the security center where members are checked in, do you hear the squeak of kids' sneakers on a indoor basketball court and see seniors having lunch in a clean, well-kept dining room.
The Tenderloin, while a rough part of town, has the city's largest concentration of children, and is a natural place for the Salvation Army, said Major George Rocheleau, who runs the center.
This is the community center a Suisun City Council subcommittee toured two months ago when they were deciding what the Salvation Army had to offer Suisun City.
The Suisun City Council picked the Salvation Army to reopen and run the now-vacant former YMCA facility on Wigeon Way.
Both sides are now in talks over the financial aspects of the deal and the Salvation Army is assessing how much it would cost to renovate and modify the facility.
The San Francisco center, which opened in August, is much more extensive than what Capt. Fred Rasmussen, the Salvation Army's North Bay counties coordinator, envisions for the Suisun City facility.
'We are the minor leagues,' Rasmussen said comparing the two centers. 'But the standard here is what we aspire to. The principals that are established here are good for Suisun City.'
That standard is a clean, well-run, safe facility that meets the needs of the area around it, Rasmussen said during a tour of the San Francisco Salvation Army community center.
That standard starts at the Kroc Center's front door with security that ensures that everyone who enters is supposed to be there, according to Rocheleau.
Background checks are done on members, checking them against databases such as those for registered sex offenders.
'We have to rise to the sensitivity of the times,' Rocheleau said of a public's rising concern for safety.
Down the hallway is a gym with a hard-foam court, a rotating rock wall and six basketball hoops which were being used by a class from a nearby school.
'They rent the place from us,' Rocheleau said. 'Before this, they were playing in a parking lot.'
See the complete story at the Daily Republic online.
