Lorraine ‘Lorry’ Herdeen (left) stands with some of the 3-year-old students
from the Pluto Class at the Florence Fuller Child Development Center in
Boca Raton. Front row, from left: Dariya Hill, Gavin Shuler and Arrianna
DeAlva. Back row, from left: Rihanna Jean-Pierre, Jayden Wade, Kinsley
Dasne and Natalie Huang. Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star
By Ron Hayes
On Jan. 30, 1976, an elementary education teacher from Oakdale, N.Y, named Lorry Herdeen was hired to educate several dozen 4-year-olds at the Florence Fuller Child Development Center in Pearl City.
Thirty-six years and thousands of children later, she’s preparing to retire as the center’s executive director.
“It feels like I blinked and here I am,” she said recently, taking a break in the center’s administration building on Northeast 14th Street. “But I think it’s time.”
When Herdeen arrived in 1976, the center itself was in its infancy.
In 1968, a volunteer tutor named Dorothy Fleegler pondered the poor conditions of the area’s Mexican migrant families and determined to start a pre-school to counter the lack of early education.
Florence Fuller
Fleegler contacted her friend, James Fuller, who agreed to finance a center if it were named after his wife, and three years later the Florence Fuller Child Development Center was incorporated.
A single building on land donated by the city, it opened in 1971 with 22 pre-schoolers.
Four years later, infants were accepted into a day care program, then classes for 3- and 4-year olds. Later, after-school programs were added for children 5 to 13.
In 1977, it became the first human services agency in Florida to receive federal subsidized child care money.
And in 1990, a second center opened off State Road 441 to serve the western suburbs.
“I love knowing that when I get up in the morning, I’m making a difference in someone’s life,” Herdeen said. “And I’ve been here long enough that I can see the results.”
When she arrived, the center had about 20 employees. Today, about a hundred employees serve about 600 children each year in four classroom buildings. Most of those children are from eastern Boca Raton, and some from Boynton Beach and Delray Beach. There’s always a waiting list.
According to its 2010 annual report, the center has total revenue of $5,258,000, most of it from government grants.
As the center grew, Herdeen’s responsibilities grew with it.
In 1978, she was named education coordinator. In 1987, she became the assistant director and, since 1988, the executive director.
“I’ve learned that children have no guile,” she reflected. “They haven’t learned not to say what they think, so they’re honest. Sometimes brutally honest. And they have the joy of discovery. Everything is new to them every day, so I relive the joy of life just by being around them.”
The years have not been without their tragedies, though.
“About 20 years ago, we had a baby who was killed when the mother’s boyfriend threw her against the wall,” Herdeen recalled. “We hadn’t been aware of any abuse, but the ones we haven’t saved are the ones I never forget.”
Three years ago, the Harold & Mary Perper Center for Mildly Ill Children opened on campus, staffed five days a week by Maria Garcia, a licensed practical nurse who cares for children with a sore throat, flu or infections.
“I saw many parents with entry-level jobs and several children,” Herdeen explained. “One got a cold and it would run like wildfire through the family, and the parents missed work.”
Now, Garcia tends to those children, while also educating parents on health issues
Keeping parents involved is important, Herdeen said, so the center has both a policy and parent committee, where parents review and approve procedures and discuss complaints, compliments and suggestions.
Herdeen’s final day will be Dec. 31. Asked what she wants people to know about the Florence Fuller Center, she paused.
“In Yosemite, there are trees 300 feet tall, but their root system is only 8 feet wide,” she said at last. “But they don’t fall over because the roots are entwined. That’s how the center runs. We all hold each other up to create something really
fine.”
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