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	The Ypsilanti Courier A Heritage Newspaper Weekly Publication

Ford family center to close in June

By Austen Smith, Editor

PUBLISHED: April 19, 2007

An Ypsilanti-based family and daycare center for employees of Ford Motor Company is closing after five years.

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The Pete Pestillo Family Center, 850 S. Hewitt Road, originally was opened to offer a variety of services to local Ford employees including child care, after school activities, continuing education and family programs. Announced in January, Ford executives will close down a total of seven family centers located throughout Michigan, and others throughout the United States, because of financial cutbacks.

"All of the centers will remain in operation until June 29," said Ford Motor Company's Public Affairs representative Marcie Evans.

"(The centers) are being closed because of Ford's business realities and restructuring initiative. Difficult decisions had to be made," she said.

The idea to establish centers that would aid Ford families with child care and community-based programs, developed out of 1999 negotiations between the United Auto Workers and the Ford company. The Pete Pestillo Center was the fourth to open in Michigan and offered a variety of services such as housekeeping referrals, entertainment, music, dance and health and fitness lessons.

Membership to the center was free for UAW members and Ford employees and relatives.

Most of the employees at the center were contracted through Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a Massachusetts-based child care and family programs provider.

Evans said the centers provided valuable services for area families, but the cost for keeping the centers open fell by the wayside as executives recently completed a structural analysis.

"The decision to close (the centers) was based on the company going through an analysis on all of its costs," she said. "We're restructuring in a lot different areas."

Judy Busack contributed to this report.

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