UPDATED: Jan. 18, 2011

Syracuse University alumnus John Reilly III and his wife, Patty, have pledged $3.5 million toward the construction of a new day care and educational center on South Campus.

The Jack Reilly Learning Campus for Child Care Excellence, named after the Reillys’ 13-month-old son who died in a California day care fire, will physically and programmatically connect the two day care centers on South Campus.

‘This has always been an idea in the making,’ said Patty Reilly. ‘When visiting the campus, we never understood why there were two separate day cares on campus, and by uniting it all, we are very happy everything is united under one roof.’ 

The Reillys have been working with the university since the early ’90s, advocating for the education of day care providers, parents and members of the community about child care safety.

In 2007, the couple pledged $1.75 million for the Jack Reilly Institute for Early Childhood and Provider Education. The institute’s mission is to provide training for early childhood professionals on childhood safety, according to the College of Human Ecology website. The new center will serve as the physical building for the institute.

The new construction will add 16,000 square feet to the Bernice M. Wright Child Development Laboratory School and the Early Education and Child Care Center and is expected to be 35,000 square feet total after construction is complete, according to a Dec. 16 SU News Services release.

The additional space will expand existing space, such as storage areas, meeting rooms and office space, and create new functional space, including breast feeding areas and a parent piazza, said Michele Barrett, spokeswoman for the College of Human Ecology, in an e-mail. It will also add space for community lectures and workshops, such as the Jack Reilly Distinguished Lecture Series in Infant and Toddler Caregiving.

It will include rooms for occupational, physical and speech therapy for children with developmental needs. It will triple the number of children and families served, from 60 to 180, according to the news release.

Offering teachers more space and resources ‘to support the exceptional work they are doing with the children at SU is a very exciting opportunity,’ Barrett said.

A timetable has not been set for the construction of the new center, according to the Dec. 16 press release, but Munly Brown Studio will be meeting with campus and community members to discuss the design process of the new center.

The center will combine programs at the two day cares, Barrett said. Inclusive education is currently offered for toddlers and preschool children at the Child Development Laboratory School, but the new center will offer inclusive education for infants. This will make SU’s child care program one of the first to offer inclusive education for infants, Barrett said.

During the spring semester, six groups representing the Child Development Laboratory School, Early Education and Child Care Center and the College of Human Ecology will meet to make recommendations regarding the design of the building to ensure it meets current and future needs of children and the mission of the college, Barrett said.

Each working group will focus on recommendations for specific topics, including parent and staff areas, shared areas, outdoor play areas, landscape rooms, classrooms, therapy rooms and parking.

Although the Reillys are not heavily involved in the design process, they have reviewed the drawings and have provided some of their own suggestions, John said. He also said he and Patty have not seen the final design, so they do not know if their suggestions will be used.

Their suggestions included a covering between the area where parents drop off their children and the building. Due to the weather in Syracuse, a covering could give parents a safe way to drop their children off at the day care without dealing with bad weather conditions, John said.

The Reillys chose to work with SU for their project because of its involvement in Head Start, a national program that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.

‘It made sense that Syracuse University would be interested in this,’ John said, ‘The question was how to implement the plan.’

This is not the first time John, a 1969 undergraduate alumnus and 1970 graduate, and his wife have given to the school. In addition to the institute and the new center, the Reillys have also established the Jack Reilly Distinguished Lecture Series in Infant and Toddler Caregiving and the Jack Reilly Professorship. The Quality Infant and Toddler Caregiving workshop has been offered through the institute since 2007.

‘We’re not obligated to do it, we did it because it’s something we really wanted to do,’ said John. ‘It’s our legacy in life.’

The $3.5 million the Reillys have pledged toward the construction of the new center is a portion of the $5 million the couple has agreed to contribute to the university toward the education of child care safety for members of the community. The gift will go toward The Campaign for Syracuse University, a campaign in which the university aims to raise $1 billion by the end of 2012.

Although the couple has agreed to contribute $5 million to the university, the Reillys are average people who invest wisely and work hard, John said.

‘By the time we die, we’ll have the money,’ he said.

The money the Reillys have pledged thus far is not a gift of philanthropy but rather a legacy gift for their only son, who died in a day care fire in 1989, John said.

‘Giving money isn’t a legacy. You have to give your full feeling and teach other people,’ he said. ‘How you help them, that’s what’s important now. That’s why we’ve done it.’

The Reillys main goal is to educate the whole community. They want to educate families on how to find a day care and providers for their children, Patty said. SU was open to the idea of including the community, she said.

‘That was something very important to us, and Syracuse is fulfilling its promises by doing this,’ Patty said. ‘We can’t educate without all future educators in the world, without educating the family, the parents.’

Although the Reillys began advocating for the well-being and safety of children shortly after they lost their son, their mission is not because of the tragedy they faced but because they want to do something good for the community, John said.

John said: ‘We’ve decided to take a tragedy and turned it into something positive.’

[email protected]

A previous version of this article appeared on dailyorange.com on Dec. 17.

Published on December 16, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: [email protected] | @lgleveille