Do plAces hAve birthdAYs?
Well, we’ve made it. Our doors have been open for a whole month and each day brings new joys, new excitement, and new adventures. Celebrating our first month with kids got me thinking… do places have birthdays? When was Play Frontier born?
Was it born the first official licensed day open, April 2? Or how about our first day with employees, March 26? Or maybe the first board meeting? The first day with keys to the building? First day as a nonprofit, adopted by our sponsors, CEKC? The first day with a business license? First business cards? First day with a logo (shout-out to Eliza Carver for her incredible work!)?
Does it go back even further than that? Back to the day I resigned from my delightful and steady job to dive off the deep end? Back further to the first secret “Frontier” Pinterest board, full of images and dreams of what could be? Or maybe back even further, to spring 2016 when the name Frontier hit me like a ton of bricks and started coloring my world-view with ideas for “someday, at my own school…”
What about even further than that? Back to when the building we inhabit was built, or back to when the fields were cleared and ground was broken for the Wind River Nursery. Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far… but it’s important to me, because we love this place, this tree-processing-plant-turned-marijuana-grow-facility-turned-playschool, and we are thankful for all of it. We are thankful for the journey itself.
The reality is that celebrating place is not nearly as important as celebrating people. Celebrating the people who led us to this place, the people who encouraged us to keep going when the path was unclear. Celebrating the people who have volunteered countless hours and hard-earned money to help see this dream realized. Celebrating the people who took a chance on us when Frontier was new and unpredictable, for they all make us who we are today.
We would like to celebrate the people we proudly call our community partners - our Founders, and our Founding Families of Play Frontier - in the way we know best… by making something that will live forever in our hearts and hands.
With thAt, I would like to introduce our Origin Quilt.
Crafted by Tasha Johnson of Explorations Early Learning, this quilt was made as a means of honoring all of the Founders and Founding Families. The idea is that each person, family, and organization that helped us during our first year gets their name written on the quilt. It will hang in our hallway for all to see, and will get taken down at the end of the year to be used by the kids at nap time and during play. Each new child who spends time at Play Frontier will get to snuggle in it and let it keep them warm, build a fort with it, see the letters and names and ask questions about it. Our Origin Quilt will keep the memory of all of the love and work that went into our beginnings.
Know a person or organization that might be interested in adding their name to the quilt? Send a sponsorship form their way, or have them donate through the button at the bottom of this website! (All donations are tax-deductible… wahoo!)
“Why donate? Don’t your families pay tuition?”
This question has come up a few times, and the answer is that our goal at Play Frontier, a nonprofit organization, is to keep the cost of childcare affordable to our community by raising additional money to cover our operating costs. Tuition covers our day-to-day costs, but we need additional funds to make facility improvements - like building playground structures, to purchase larger items, and have on hand for emergencies (whoa that was a lot of snow to move). Your donation makes Play Frontier an even better, stronger, and happier place.
