All Souls Community Center Update

We are pleased to announce the recent sale of our All Souls Community Center in Port Chester to the Rye YMCA.

RPC acquired the facilities at 45 and 55 Parkway Drive in March 2022 as an incredibly generous gift from the members of the All Souls Parish—The Presbyterian Church of Port Chester—upon its dissolution in December 2021. This included a sanctuary, three floors of classrooms, and a manse next door. Our goal in acquiring the property was to serve as a steward of this property so it would be used for mission and ministry within Port Chester. That summer, we renamed the property the All Souls Community Center. The facility has housed Five Steps to Five, a non-profit educational bilingual program supporting immigrant families; the village of Port Chester summer camp; two worship groups; EarthCare; Meals on Main Street, preparing meals for the hungry; and Food to Grow On, which packages lunches for Port Chester students weekly.

The village of Port Chester has been identified as a “childcare desert,” with a severe and urgent shortage of care for low and moderate income preschool children. In mid-2023, we approached the Rye Y, whose scope for early childcare has been expanded to include Port Chester. In addition to Rye, the Y runs a childcare center in Mamaroneck. The YMCA has provided considerable financial assistance to Port Chester families in need through a scholarship program to attend their program in Rye. By the end of 2023, we signed an agreement with them to create a full-time, licensed childcare center at the All Souls location to serve 103 children ages 3 months to 6 years old. When it opens, the facility will increase the number of childcare slots in Port Chester by 66% and will serve as a lifeline for families to maintain employment and break the cycle of poverty. The sale closed in late July, and the new center is projected to open in the fall of 2027. The manse was sold to Heather and John Miller in early 2025 upon his retirement as co-pastor at RPC.

Seventy-five percent (75%) of the sale proceeds will be invested into affordable tuition scholarships for children of Port Chester residents. Twenty-five percent (25%) will be governed by the original agreement with the Hudson River Presbytery, with 10% going to HRP and the balance, along with cash and investments, into special funds for outreach initiatives in the Port Chester community.

The Rye Y has begun a capital campaign to raise the construction funds necessary to complete the childcare center. In the meantime, since the closing, the Rye Y continues to provide space and support for the organizations serving the Port Chester community.