Sevenoaks Day Nursery opened
its doors in 1989. However, these doors are now showing their age, along with the walls, floors and ceilings!
After 30 years, our cabins are five years beyond their expected lifespan. We look after them well, but we’ll need to renew them in the next few years. Our landlords, Sevenoaks Town Council, have generously offered us a site in their redevelopment of the Community Centre and even had their architects design a smart new home for us, but the cost would have been prohibitive. The Trustees have looked at many alternatives but, in the end, have decided to simply replace our existing cabins with new, modern versions. This will mean that we can maintain our level of charitable activity, but greatly improve conditions for our children and our staff.
The cost of this solution? We’re budgeting for £450,000.
Since opening full-time in 1989 we’ve been mindful of the fact that we’d have to renew our buildings after about twenty-five years and have been saving for this day. We anticipate that by 2019 we’ll be short by about £50,000. So we’re trying to up our game as far as fund raising is concerned and will be holding a number of fun and exciting events over the next couple of years. But we’ll also need to encourage people to make donations.
Other ways to help
Just to set you thinking, here are a few suggestions based on past acts of kindness:-
- Pledge to supply a specific aspect of the new build, eg a new storage shed for outdoor toys; a new security system; a new fitted kitchen; new noticeboards for the classrooms
- Sponsor a classroom. Known as the ‘Allied Dunbar room’, the current babies’ room was bought for us with a generous donation from Allied Dunbar
- If you are a business, you could support your employees through the ‘give as you earn’ scheme and/or ‘matched giving’
- Make us your charity of the year
If any of these ideas strike a chord or if you’ve ideas of your own and wish to talk it over with someone at the Nursery, then please call James Wallace.
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