The Robert Crown
Effect BY MIKE ELLIS
M
any local residents will recall the news released in the fall of 2017 that the Robert Crown Center for Health Education (RCC) was selling its property on Salt Creek Lane in Hinsdale to the Hinsdale Humane Society. Thousands of students in the western suburbs passed through the doors of this facility, designed to function as a “health museum,” since it opened in 1958. But the RCC story did not end with the sale of its property—in fact, the Hinsdalebased non-profit organization moved to the next block over, and is now located within a large office building on Spinning Wheel Drive. “It was intentional,” RCC executive director Bar Thayer said of the move. “It was really to give us a sustainable operating structure.”
38
HinsdaleMag.com | HINSDALE MAGAZINE
“Selling our building put us in a very good financial position,” staff accountant LeeAnne Stifflear said. “It allowed us to revamp and redevelop the programs, as we needed to do and as we wanted to do.” Thayer said prior to the sale of the facility in November 2017, RCC had been delivering 80 percent of its programming in schools, before converting to a 100-percent in-school delivery model that past August. “The building was very much underutilized,” she said. “It just wasn’t cost-effective for us to continue to operate the building, so we made that conscious decision to move to 100-percent in-school delivery.”
director, while her previous position, the director of communications, director of development and special events organizer roles were terminated entirely. At the time of its relocation, RCC had 17 employees; but since that time, the nonprofit organization has added eight to that total, increasing its health education staff from nine to 15. “We’ve grown in that time, mostly through health educators,” Thayer said. ... “We’re continuing to deliver more programs to more students in the schools.”
In addition to selling its well-known center, Thayer said RCC also cut four administrative positions to create a more “streamlined operating structure.”
RCC conducts a variety of programs for students across 165 public school districts and a number of private schools in the Chicago metropolitan area under two general heads: drug education and sex education. In addition, it offers parent programs on puberty and teen sexual health.
Thayer, who was then functioning as chief operating officer, became executive
Director of education Katie Gallagher said over the past few years, the organization
