On Thursday, officials unveiled the latest enhancement at Chester’s ACCESS Center , a $300,000-plus playground open to the community. ”It’s a safe place, a safe place for the kids. Hopefully they get a lot of use out of it,” said Jack Surgent, the force behind the project The ACCESS Community Center, an acronym for A Community Center Established by the Surgent Family for Society, opened in October 2022 and is the concept of Surgent, a Villanova University graduate and successful CPA who has created a nonprofit to build the $3 million facility, which he hopes will provide a safe place for residents to enjoy.
Surgent said he came up with the idea of a community center through his involvement with the sisters at Drexel Neumann Academy, an independent Catholic school at 19th and Potter Streets in Chester, as well as through their other charity, Annie’s Place, a hospitality center sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis at Second and Norris streets. The Sisters run the community center.
At Thursday’s ribbon cutting for the playground, Surgent said the community center is serving meals to about 1,500 people a month as well as having multiple programs for adults, including 12-step programs, ESL, employment fairs, health fairs and a new program with Elwyn. “We’re really starting to see the facility is being used a lot,” Surgent said. “We keep wanting to have more activities but a lot were effectively for older adults.
Now, with the playground, we have great facili.
