Community Playschool Spotlight

By Sheila G. Kelley, Development Coordinator

Bright colors, clusters of small chairs and tables, and big printed letters and numbers are strong indicators that you’ve stepped back in time to when you were small and going to preschool meant everything. Unfortunately, sometimes families aren’t able to find or fund preschool for their children, especially those younger than the county’s Head Start age requirements.

But with grant funding from the Harvey County United Way, the Community Playschool preschool has been able to sustain itself through difficult times and continue to provide quality, creative preschool opportunities for children 2 ½ to 5 years of age.

Jeannette Leary, Playschool co-director, said HCUW funding has made it possible for the program to offer sliding scale tuition fees to those families that might not be able to afford other preschools.

She appreciates that HCUW doesn’t place restrictions on how the funding must be used as does many other grants.  Besides tuition relief, partial funds have been used to supplement salaries of the director.

Jeannette, along with co-director Kasey Newell, supervises the twice-weekly program along with volunteer teachers and classroom aides. With the pandemic, class sizes have been noticeably smaller than in the past.

“At one time, we had 60 children enrolled. There was quite a drop off during 2020 due to the pandemic but our numbers are steadily growing again,” stated Jeanette. Currently there are 20 children split into two classes of 10 each.

Classes are held 9-11 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and follow public school closure procedures. Mennonite Church on the Bethel College campus provides classroom space along with a large meeting room and director office space at no cost to the program.

Harvey County United Way has funded the preschool for nearly 26 years. “Without those funds, there would definitely be a <financial> gap” they’d have to overcome.  “United Way helps us sustain our organization,” Jeanette said.

You can find out more about Community Playschool by visiting them online.