The Francine A LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being will open on October 30.

Barnard College announced that the Francine A LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being in Barnard Hall will open on Wednesday, October 30. 

The opening date was revealed with a video posted on Barnard’s Instagram showing lounge areas for students, office spaces, and a renovated gym. Currently, the entrance to the center is visible, but the rest remains blocked off with caution tape. 

The LeFrak Foundation Center’s mission is to offer physical, mental, and financial wellness support for the Barnard community. Services the center has already provided to students include “walk and talk” programs where students can take walks with experts on different topics, lunch and learn events where students can learn about financial literacy, and snacks stocked around Milstein during midterm and final exam periods. Now with a physical space, the center will continue to focus on its three pillars of wellness.

The center was named after Francine A LeFrak, a philanthropist whose mother attended Barnard. LeFrak spoke on the new Center for Well-Being, “I have seen firsthand how wellness is an intersection of financial, physical, and mental well-being. This center will be a point of hope for women.”

When the center was first announced in October 2020, the initial timeline for its creation set the start of construction in January 2022, with the opening set for September 2023. Construction did not begin on Barnard Hall until Fall 2022. The tentative date for a Grand Opening is in March 2025. 

Lefrak Foundation Center pre-open via Bwog Staff