It's been five years in the making, but the Burnaby Neighbourhood House is finally celebrating the official opening of the new Gilpin daycare.
Desperate parents spearheaded the project, got the Burnaby Neighbourhood House on board and collected thousands of dollars worth of pop bottles to help pay for the three portables that now sit on the grounds of Gilpin Elementary.
"It was a lot of hard work, a lot of pop bottles collected. There were a lot of contributors, but it was mostly parents and donors in the community," said Antonia Beck, executive director of the Burnaby Neighbourhood House.
"The parents who brought it forward don't even need daycare anymore," Beck added.
"They had school-aged kids. Some of them couldn't go to work because they had no child care, and there wasn't any child-care operator in the Gilpin area. They approached the neighbourhood house to see if we could help them."
The project cost $480,000, and Beck estimated about half of that was raised by parents. But the fundraising isn't over -Beck said the neighbourhood house had to dip into its reserves to fund the project and is about $200,000 short. She's hoping the provincial government will pitch in.
"That daycare is filling a very important need, but it will be filling it for many years," she said. "It would be really nice if the province came forward with some funding."
The daycare was up and running in spring, but the grand opening was postponed because of the teachers' strike. This Wednesday evening, after NOW deadlines, the Burnaby Neighbouhood House will host the grand opening.
The daycare runs a before- and after-school-care program for kids in kindergarten up to Grade 7. Gilpin's maximum capacity is 40, and the daycare is already full with a waiting list. The school district helped by allowing the neighbourhood house to use some classroom space while people fundraised for the portables.
