LOCKPORT, N.Y. — Looking back to March 2020 — schools closed and hospital beds were quickly filling up with patients sick with COVID-19. That's when two entities put their community services to use and they stepped up. In the end, they gave a couple hundred kids a safe place to learn, while their parents worked on the frontline of the pandemic.

At Cornerstone CFCU Arena in Lockport, things are a lot quieter.

“Let me start at the beginning,” Sue Capell, executive director and CEO of Youth Mentoring Services of Niagara County said. “We started on March 23 of 2020 as a virtual learning center for children whose parents are essential workers,” Capell continued.

First, it was breakfast time, free of charge. Then the upstairs portion of Lockport’s community ice arena turned into a school.

It was here, Capell’s idea to step up came to life.

“We called it ‘Step Up’ for a reason,” Capell said. “It was time to step up.”

For Capell, having direct contact with the community, and as a former educator, seeing kids in distress required a quick solution.

“The goal of the program was to fit the need of the kids and their families,” Capell said.

For a small daily fee, they did that, and so much more. The catalyst for Shelley Unocic, who's the general manager of the arena, to open up the otherwise closed space, was seeing firsthand the bind local healthcare workers were in.

“I received a call from Eastern Niagara Hospital,” Unocic said. “One of the workers over there is on my board, and she said, ‘Shelley 20% of my workforce called off today.’”

No in-person learning was a huge factor. So, calls were made, partnerships grew and so did the kids.

“Some of the kids started off really quiet, they didn’t socialize much,” Nina Frye, program coordinator at YMS said. “But, then they opened up and took on leadership roles.”

Some even learned how to ice skate. With crafts, physical education, even making "thank you" cards for first responders, the Step Up program offered so much more than a safe place to learn while mom and dad worked.

Up until the end of August of this year, 200 kids would be part of the program. They became a family.

Step Up has been added into Youth Mentoring Services' regular programming, and it will be held here at the arena.

“To me, this a celebration of a partnership,” Capell said.

A partnership that’s left a lasting impact on these smiling faces.

That is why Youth Mentoring Services and Cornerstone CFCU Arena are your 2021 American Red Cross Community Service Heroes.

This is only a snapshot of the nearly 18-month long program, which they set up in just a week.

If you're interested in helping out the kids involved in Youth Mentoring Services, they are always looking for volunteers.