ARLINGTON -- Within one year, Fidelity House in Arlington lost its most important person and its most important asset.

The daycare, rec center, and after-school social hub, which has become an Arlington institution since its founding by Msgr. Oscar O'Gorman of St. Agnes Parish in 1955, was massively expanded under the leadership of Edward F. Woods. When he joined Fidelity House 40 years before his death, its programs enrolled few children. He turned it into one of the first daycares in the area and a fundraising powerhouse with a million-dollar annual budget. He envisioned that FiHo, as it's affectionately known, would evolve alongside the needs of local families.

"He was the salt of the earth," said Lisa Urben, who took over as director of Fidelity House after Woods's death in 2025.

"He set the standard of what we need to do, and it's like a blueprint for the future," she added.

A few months before his death, construction began on a new gymnasium for Fidelity House. The original small, dated gym, inaugurated by Cardinal Richard Cushing in 1956, often inspired comparisons to the movie "Hoosiers" from visitors. Nevertheless, it was well-loved.

"Games would be packed in there," Urban said. "We just had benches around the end. And it was like being in the Boston Garden. There's so many people in there cheering them on."

The plan to build a new gym was hatched in 2013, and construction on the $6 million project began in 2024. The Edward F. Woods Gymnasium, which has two basketball courts, is slated to open next month, barring delays. Woods, legendary for his humility, was reluctant to have the gym named after him.

Judy Tessitore, who has volunteered at Fidelity House for over 20 years, said that the gym was FiHo's "heartbeat," along with Woods himself. It was Woods who encouraged her to volunteer there full-time after retiring.

"I don't know too many people who have ever said no to Ed Woods," she said. "He was that kind of guy."

She said Urben has done "an amazing job" keeping Fidelity House open.

"I've come to appreciate how difficult it is to run a program off of a lot of donations," she said. "Having small budgets and having to make ends meet, it's been very difficult for Fidelity House over the years."

Fidelity House is still active, despite the loss of its main gym. It has 40 full-time employees and a host of volunteers, including local high school and college students. Urben says that each day in her life feels like an entire week. The daycare is at full capacity, with 100 children from babies to sixth graders using it each day. Many parents receive financial aid to enroll their children.

"I wish we could all go by without getting paid," Urben said. "No one will make what they could out somewhere else. But you don't do it for the money. You do it because you're getting so many other things. And this is really what life is about. It's not about the money, it's about being part of community and people helping other people."

Generations of families have been raised at Fidelity House.

"You'll get the children and the grandchildren of people that have been here forever," she said. "They want to continue that for their families, and they'll come back and go 'Oh, it looks the same. It smells the same.'"

The main entrance of Fidelity House is timeless. Foosball tables sit atop hardwood floors. The walls are covered in posters of cartoon characters and Boston sports legends. Multiple posters warn that whining is not allowed on the premises. One shelf has a LEGO replica of Fidelity House and a LEGO figurine of Urben herself. Another is full of sports trophies won by Fidelity House's teams.

"We have a million more trophies," Urben said. "I'm not a fan of trophies. They collect dust."

She wants kids at Fidelity House to learn that winning isn't everything.

"It's all the other intrinsic small parts of the sport," she said. "Learning commitment and learning to come to practice, and sportsmanship, and developing your skills to use it however you want later on."

Fidelity House is famed for its basketball program and travel teams. Boston Celtics coaches would drop their kids off at the gym. NBA star Pat Connaughton, currently of the Charlotte Hornets, grew up playing basketball at Fidelity House. His foundation donated $400,000 to help build the new gym.

"People just want to hear about him, but that's the thing," she said. "This place is made up of all personalities like him. They may not be in the NBA, but they are going out in the world as great people."

Fidelity House's activities are currently relegated to a smaller gym in the main building. It's used for games such as pillow polo (like ice hockey, minus the ice), gaga ball (dodgeball in an enclosed cage-like space), soccer, and gymnastics.

Urben was a gymnast studying at Northeastern University when she saw a note on the school job board: Fidelity House in Arlington was looking for a gymnastics teacher. She applied, thinking that "Arlington" referred to Arlington Street in Boston's Back Bay. Her mistake led to a 40-year career. She still teaches gymnastics and loves the looks on the kids' faces when doing so.

Urben has seen children and their parents get busier and busier in the last 40 years. Fidelity House's services are needed now more than ever. She wants FiHo to be a place where kids get off their phones and interact with each other in person.

"Their attention spans are different than they used to be," she said. "It's just a different world, too. They have access to so much more that, I think it causes fears at a younger age, because they can see everything that goes on in the world, and they can't put it into focus."

She can remember every kid's name, and their distinct personality, but still has a hard time explaining what exactly Fidelity House is. If you think you can describe Fidelity House, she said, you don't understand it.

"It's so indescribable," she said. "We don't fit into any niche."

She added: "There is a little community here that you don't find anywhere else. The kids are great, and the activities and working with them."