1. FamilyMeans program coordinator Jaime
Staska talked with kids at the nonprofit’s Lake
Elmo center on Tuesday.
RENÉE JONES SCHNEIDER , Star Tribune
A teen played cards with a young friend
Tuesday at the FamilyMeans space in Lake
Elmo’s Cimarron Park. The program currently
operates in a basement.
RENÉE JONES SCHNEIDER , Star Tribune
With $1.2 million center,
Cimarron Park youth program
grows up
Article by: Nancy Crotti
Special to the Star Tribune
November 22, 2014 ­3:
36 PM
The FamilyMeans youth development program in
Lake Elmo’s Cimarron Park is not your traditional
day­care
center. Nor is it an extension of the school
day. Maybe that’s why children and teens who live in
the mobile home community keep going back.
The program, set up by the Stillwater nonprofit
agency, provides local children and teens, many of
whom come from low­income
households, with free
and educational after­school
and summer programs.
It’s been so popular that today, six years after it
started under a tent on a nearby ball field, space is so
tight that the children’s room can barely contain the
kids and all of its books, toys, computers and
supplies.
With demand for the program growing, FamilyMeans
broke ground in September on a 4,400­square­foot
building to open in January next to its current
location. The $1.2 million project is being funded by

2. more than a half­dozen
foundations and individual
donors.
“FamilyMeans will now be able to expand on the
programs they provide and develop new programs
that will better the lives of the kids in Cimarron Park,
their families, and the greater community as well,”
said Tom Yuska, who founded the agency’s youth
programs 20 years ago.
FamilyMeans broke ground in September on a
About 300 school­aged
children live in Cimarron
$1.2 million building. The nonprofit currently
Park, just north of Lake Elmo’s border with
serves 125 kids from Cimarron Park. The new
center, set to open in January, will allow the
Woodbury. Of that group, 125 — about 85 percent of
program to grow.
whom qualify for free­or
reduced­price
school
RENÉE JONES SCHNEIDER , Star Tribune
lunches — are enrolled in the FamilyMeans program,
which aims to give children and teens opportunities to grow emotionally, connect with trusted adults
and area resources and contribute to the broader community, Yuska said.
Program leaders say adding space also will allow more children and teens to enroll and participate.
The new building will be equipped with a commercial kitchen for preparing food and will feature
activity rooms and “quiet” rooms for children and teens relaxing or doing homework.
“We’re thrilled to partner with FamilyMeans to bring programs that will benefit the community’s kids
both academically and socially,” said Kate Yunke, property manager for the park, which is owned by
Equity LifeStyle Properties Inc. of Chicago.
Equity LifeStyle allows FamilyMeans to operate rent­free
in the basement of the building that houses
the mobile home park’s management office. The company is charging the organization $1 per year
in a 30­year
lease for the new building’s land.
As a winter chill blew across Lake Elmo earlier this month, construction crews were busy raising the

3. frame of the new building, just a short walk from FamilyMeans’ current location.
The scene was quite a contrast to summer 2008, when FamilyMeans started its program in
Cimarron. That first day, 35 kids showed up.
Since then, the program has operated in 900 square feet in the basement of Equity Lifestyle’s office
and clubhouse.
It’s a busy place.
On a recent afternoon, a gaggle of rosy­cheeked
boys raced from their school buses to the
children’s room, where they stuffed their backpacks into cubbyholes. Younger children doffed their
jackets and headed straight for a long table, where Jaime Staska, the children’s program
coordinator, had spread a coloring sheet. Others excitedly launched into a video game. Staska gave
them all some free time before calling for order.
“Give me five, four, three, two, one, zero. All eyes on me, please,” she said, folding one finger for
each number until her hand closed.
Staska then asked those who were interested in the day’s activity — nutrition — to sign their names
on a chalkboard. Some kids had a hard time settling down to listen, and hijinks ensued.
“Wrestling is not allowed here, because it’s a little bit of a dangerous activity,” Staska reminded
them, prompting a few boys to chuckle.
After Staska finished the day’s announcements, one of the teen workers escorted some children
outside to play. A 12­year­old
girl, who has attended the program since it began, sat at a table in the
teen room, puzzling with a friend over how to insert a bobbin into a sewing machine.
The seventh­grader,
who said sewing is her favorite activity, said she has sewn an iPad case and
learned how to sew a buttonhole.
As part of the program mission, Cimarron teens have made blankets for hospitalized children,

4. volunteered at Feed My Starving Children, and worked as assistants to Staska and teen program
coordinator Katie Fisher in a partnership with FamilyMeans and the Washington County Workforce
Center.
“It is often their first job,” Yuska said. “It’s kind of a good introductory job for them because they
know the environment, they know the program [and] how it works, so they are not going into a
foreign situation.”
Teen staffers also have taken peers to visit local colleges. A young man who attended the
FamilyMeans program in Landfall before enlisting in the Army and serving in Iraq stopped at
Cimarron to speak to others interested in military service. Staska has taken younger children to visit
with elderly residents who participate in a caregiver support program.
Other adults visit Cimarron on a regular basis to teach art, drama, dance, gymnastics and sewing,
all in an effort to help kids tap their interests and develop skills. During the summer, they can play
soccer and take swimming lessons in the community’s pool.
Staska, who has been with the Cimarron program since its inception, has enjoyed watching many of
the kids grow and mature. Some have gone on to jobs, others to college. Some have become
accomplished gymnasts. Many have found their own voice, including one teen who spoke at the
groundbreaking ceremony for the new building.
“That’s a really neat thing to do, to see someone like that … really grow into her personality,” Staska
said. “It’s been quite a privilege to be able to see them grow and develop. Development is the goal,
after all.”
Nancy Crotti is a Twin Cities freelance writer

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