A beloved Manhattan sensory gym providing free after-school therapy for some preschool-age children with special needs has suddenly shuttered, leaving scores of families heartbroken.
The Smile Center opened in Midtown in 2009 — and closed its doors last week after longtime Director Huck Ho died of a heart attack at age 56 earlier this month, according to a source familiar with the matter.
“Our director had passed away, so as of right now, we’re going to have to shut down until we know if there was a plan in place,” said Kristina Terpo, an office coordinator at the facility, to The Post.
The private center is believed to have been one of only two of its kind in the borough that accepted vouchers from the city Department of Education for free therapy.
Terpo said she is “heartbroken” that some of the dozens of Smile’s families who relied on the vouchers through the DOE’s Committee on Preschool Special Education now have even fewer affordable options.
“The only place that I know [that accepts vouchers] is Making Milestones. … [And] they’re not going to have enough space for all of [Smile’s families], unfortunately,” Terpo said.
A rep for Making Milestones on the Upper West Side said it is the only remaining private center in Manhattan to accept the vouchers — and confirmed that the facility is already inundated with more requests than it can fill.
“We’re taking down all names. … Most of the kids from Smile [Center] called,” the rep said, noting that the list is a “couple pages” long.
Some of the Smile Center’s dozen occupational, physical and speech therapists may be able to land work at Making Milestones to “help with our case load,” the rep said.
“By next week we should have a better understanding of the situation.”
Other private therapies can cost hundreds of dollars per session, according to Upper East Side parent Mary, a former Smile Center parent who declined to provide her last name to The Post.
“Getting the services that children are entitled to is very challenging here in the city — just having done it with one child, [Smiles was] one of the few places that you can go and the DOE essentially will pay for it,” said Mary, whose toddler started attending the center earlier this year.
“There’s so much demand for this stuff, so I’m flabbergasted that this could be happening.”
Smile Center parents took to social media to mourn the loss of the center, with one parent of a child who went to the center for eight years noting Ho “impacted so many people.”
Another person wrote, “[Ho] knew each and every kid who came through the doors of Smile, and he was so loving and understanding of all of them.’’
A Midtown resident said her family even moved into an apartment near Smile so they could be a 5-minute walk to it.
A DOE rep said the agency is “working with families to ensure they can continue to easily access the services they need in their community.”
The representative said there are more than 80 similar SEED — or Exploration, Education, and Discovery — sites across the five boroughs that provide similar no-cost services.
When asked about the difference between a SEED site and a private facility such as the Smile Center, the rep called the private sites “more of a one-stop shop” with amenities such as fully equipped sensory gyms.
Some parents, including Mary, told The Post they had never heard of the program, which started in 2022.Since then, more than 9,000 students have participated in the program, including over 4,000 in the past school year.
SEED participants are also limited to 12 sessions a year, and caregivers must remain on-site during each session, according to the DOE’s website.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether the Smile Center will ever reopen under a new director, a worker told The Post.
“This was a special place,” the worker added, “and I don’t think there’s another center kind of like it.”
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