Seventy-five years ago, the former Packard marine plant on East Grand Boulevard was used to build engines for British bomber planes in World War II.

Today, on one of the floors of a 120,000-square-foot building that helped fuel the Arsenal of Democracy, a group of Detroit children is learning how to read and write.

AmeriSource Industrial Supply Co. has dedicated a multi-room space within the building for an after-school reading program run by a full-time teacher and a corps of volunteer mentors that includes employees from American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. and Quicken Loans and students from Wayne State University.

It's an unusual setting for a classroom inside the one Packard building that always remained occupied long after the Packard Motor Co. deserted the sprawling and window-less 3.5-million-square-foot factory next door.

"We had the space, so we did it," said Lou Ray, president of AmeriSource. "Somebody's got to start somewhere."

For years, Ray had been alarmed by the high rates of illiteracy among Detroit youth. "We knew the need was all around us," he said.

In 2014, Ray hired educator Andrea Meyer to create a nonprofit that is now called the Center for Success. Meyer, a Rochester Hills native, spent five years teaching children in south-central Los Angeles and later taught in the Warren and Center Line school districts after she moved back to Michigan.

Meyer designed a curriculum, student testing and assessment measures and raised additional funding for the program, which serves about 50 students throughout the school year from two charter schools — Detroit Enterprise Academy and University Prep Science & Math Elementary.

The Grosse Pointe Old Devils, a charity-minded group of hockey buddies Ray is part of, raised $85,000 of the program's $100,000 budget for this school year. The rest is funded by donations from businesses and philanthropic organizations, Meyer said.

Quicken Loans employees helped paint and clean the program's new classroom space over the Christmas holiday and dPOP — the workspace-design firm co-founded by Jennifer Gilbert, wife of Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert — donated furniture for the classroom, library and study rooms, Meyer said.