Last week was a pretty good one for children in the Waterville area.

First came the news that the Harold Alfond Foundation donated $5 million to the Waterville Area Boys & Girls Club and YMCA at the Alfond Youth Center.

Then came the news that a new, satellite unit of the club would open in the city's North End, and that longtime community advocate Stephen Aucoin would head it.

Since it opened in 1999, the Alfond Youth Center has grown to offer a wealth of programs and services that would be the envy of any big-city club. They serve more than 7,000 children annually at last count and those programs and services include free after-school care (including a nutritious meal, the use of a technology center and supervised homework time), a youth fitness center, a swimming pool, gymnastics, diet counseling, a specially-designed program for juvenile offenders and athletic activities from soccer to golf and basketball.

While the youth center got off the ground because of the largesse of the Alfond family, its staff of incredibly dedicated professionals are what keeps it going. From program directors to coaches to the women and men who prepare hot meals for the children, the organization's employees clearly understand that their work with area children can mean the difference between loneliness and companionship, aimlessness or purpose, hunger or a full belly.

And by choosing Aucoin to run its new North End outpost, they chose a man whose commitment to his community's welfare is unquestionable.

Aucoin, now a city councilor, has worked with the Kennebec Valley Community Action program to construct affordable housing, upgrade deteriorating buildings and make them accessible to those with disabilities. He was head of a project to build a ball park at Camp Tracy, a summer camp on Oakland's McGrath Pond operated by the Alfond Youth Center. As one of his first acts as head of the North End office, Aucoin went door-to-door in the neighborhood to meet and talk with families about his job and the programs they need for their children.

With that on-the-ground survey, Aucoin demonstrated both his own dedication to the community as well as the larger values that inform the Waterville Boys & Girls Club. He and the club are there to serve the real needs of the area's children -- and bless the Alfonds for making it all possible.