With a little less than two months to find a new roof over their heads or perish, the parents of Gingerbread House were frantically scouring Richmond.
Their home for their entire 42-year history, a section of the Richmond Presbyterian Church on No. 2 Road and Granville Avenue, was being lost to them forever, due to renovations.
And just when it seemed the parents who together run the citys only parent-participation pre-school were clean out of ideas, they discovered some space at McKinney elementary in south Richmond.
Within a matter of weeks, the hard-working parent crew had managed to move the entire school to its new base, scrambled to put in place all necessary licenses and permits and lost just one week of school time.
Last week, in recognition of their efforts, Gingerbread House was presented with the Outstanding Pre-school award from the Council of Parent Participation Pre-schools (PPP), which represents 34 such organizations across B.C.
I think (the award) was for surviving the year; it was very special to receive, said Gingerbreads teacher, Lisa Anderson.
There was a lot of uncertainty, parents were worried as we werent sure where we were going to go.
We tried almost every school in Richmond, churches and commercial sites. But we had to rule the commercial sites out, as we only run in the mornings and it wasnt financially viable.
Things were getting quite anxious until we found McKinney.
In a PPP, the parents are not merely welcome to participate with the kids, an elected board of parents make all the decisions on hiring staff and the budget.
There are duty days (once or twice a month) when parents come into the classroom and help the teacher with snacks, setting up and cleaning up and playing with the kids.
And then theres the laundry, making stuff and keeping the website updated. Theres also a parent education event every month, usually involving a guest speaker.
Anderson has been involved with the 19-family strong Gingerbread, either as a parent or a teacher, for more than eight years.
I really liked the idea in the first instance because my three-year-old son wasnt really speaking and I was able to stay with him, keep an eye on him and see him making connections, she said.
I made friends as well by participating and Im still good friends with the people I met seven or eight years ago when I first got involved.
Mom-of-two Alli Ridley, Gingerbreads fundraising co-coordinator, has been involved for more than two years with her children, Violet, 4, and Wade, 3.
I enjoy being able to be part of the parent community and getting children to know each other and other parents, said Ridley, herself a Grade 2 job share teacher at Anderson elementary.
Being involved in the day-to-day running of their childrens pre-school instills a sense of ownership and emotional attachment, unlike regular pre-schools, according to both Anderson and Ridley.
When we had the scare last year of not knowing if it was going to continue, we tapped into that feeling of working together and being part of something, said Ridley.
We had a great sense of achievement after that and we thoroughly deserved that award.
