A daycare centre in Upper Tantallon, outside Halifax, that burnt down during the wildfires this year has announced plans to rebuild.
Giant Steps Children’s Centre suffered a giant loss when its Wyndham Road location was destroyed in the May 28 wildfires.
“One of the first thoughts we had was how thankful we were that it had been a Sunday, if you can be thankful in a tragedy of that nature,” said Lisa Rondeau, a co-owner of the daycare.
“Because we really had to think about what we would have done had the building been filled with children, 68 little children, and since then we’ve had to think of our fire evacuation plan.”
Nothing but the playground remains on the former site, but Rondeau and co-owner Donna Buckland have now announced plans to raise the centre from the ashes.
“We knew that the re-build was something that we needed to do, to help us heal, help the community heal, and daycare spaces right now are at a premium, you know so, having lots of them is not an option,” said Buckland.
Rondeau says it will take about a year to finish building, after they break ground. In the meantime, the children who attended that location will remain at the French Village Road site.
“It’s set up with large classrooms and it’s a great space for our school-agers, so we had to move them from their classrooms in order to accommodate toddlers and preschoolers,” said Rondeau.
Many changes had to be made to the centre, including adding sinks, changing statins and more outdoor space. Even Wyndham Road’s longtime cook of nearly 16 years, Dawn Burgoine, was moved to the larger centre.
Instead of feeding 68 children in a day, she now helps feed 190.
“I was very overwhelmed, I’ll just tell you that. It was a big undertaking, and I didn’t know what to do or what to think, because I was at Wyndham when it opened,’ she said.
Despite a year-long wait for the new centre, Buckland and Rondeau are looking forward to bringing a daycare back to 129 Wyndham Road.