We are located in an area of high deprivation but we are proud members of our local community and we have so much to celebrate and enjoy here from beautiful green spaces to joyful community events like Leeds' West Indian Carnival on our doorstep.
We truly believe that the early experiences of our children play a role in their life opportunities and we work hard to create a safe and home-like environment where our children are encouraged to build confidence, choose their activities including unlimited outdoor play and we are proud of the educational achievements made in our setting.
SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITY
During lockdown we have stayed open and worked with other charities and community organisations; supporting food parcel delivery, collection and delivery of clothes and toys and boxes of creative resources to local families far beyond those using the nursery. You can see our flyer for further details of some of the work we have done during this period -------------> We have ambitions in the coming year to work with our community to create new opportunities for local families such as an intergenerational project linked to a local care home but right now we need your support to create this capacity.
ADAPTING TO CHANGE
Due to the pandemic, we haven't been able to offer our free stay and play sessions for local families, our messy play and much of our calendar (from our annual seaside trip, which we have run for decades, to the Carnival) has been cancelled. Our staff team and voluntary management committee have had a really difficult year and we are taking extra time this summer to look after everyone's wellbeing.
STAYING AFLOAT
LIke many nurseries we are also under significant financial pressure due to higher costs of hygiene/safety measures, our reduced capacity this year and our commitment to always have play resources that reflect our diverse communities, shop locally, pay fair wages and look after our environment. We can make ends meet but we want to do better!
WHAT NEXT
As a non-profit we want to make a real difference, ensuring we have the capacity to benefit our community beyond the families accessing childcare. With a small amount of funding, we can update our library and play resources and generally refresh our indoor rooms and create the capacity to run small projects in collaboration, just like we have done during the lockdown.... but with the £5000 crowdfunding target that we are hoping to raise, we can take steps to begin to create a really playful and green outdoor area. We are aware that our outdoors area has been maintained but not been significantly updated since 1992 and our staff, parents and community members are keen to create a bright learning space. We want the best facilities and resources for use both in nursery hours and for our wider community at weekends.
We have a number of outdoor play spaces in the locality but these are not seen as safe. Feedback available from our local community has described current key concerns including COVID-19, being close to roads, fireworks use, poor maintenance and vandalism. We are also keen to use our trusted space to bring our diverse community together.
We can be trusted with managing projects and spending money having completed projects with National Lottery funding as well as local fundraising (parents approaching local organisations like Waitrose) and donation drives (with local charities like Freedom4Girls). We really value our links to our wider community from looking after generations of children and our organisation is governed by current and ex-parents alongside volunteers with expertise in the field of play and children's education. We can demonstrate that we are accountable to our community and welcome being challenged and explaining our work.
You can help us make a real difference in people lives and every penny can help us!