Valley Village Childcare and Excel preschool moves forward

“It takes a village to raise a child”. In this case, it took a village to raise a childcare center. Volunteers, board members, and staff spent scores of hours working to make the new Valley Village Childcare Center become a reality. What began as a dream, a possibility, is now under construction and will be completed and ready to house children by next year. Sixteen months of town council meetings and countless meetings with inspectors, architects, builders, and board members have made it all possible. The Corbett Medical Building is quickly being transformed into classrooms, offices, and child-accessible restrooms. Chairwoman Ellie Dana Raymer said, “The building has only one internal, load bearing wall. The building is being gutted, and walls removed, with the exception of two.” There will be two Excel preschool classrooms, three classrooms for Valley Village Childcare, plus two offices and therapy rooms for Excel and one office for Valley Village. There will also be a kitchen and dining room because Valley Village provides, breakfast, lunch and snack.

The attic is insulated, suitable for the fire suppression system. The attic had to be reconstructed in order to allow for the water-based fire suppression system. A dry fire suppression system would have been a monthly expense that would have “been very hard to bear”. When the ducts for the heating system are installed, they will not only run through the building but also into the attic thereby avoiding frozen fire suppression pipes. There is also a new fire alarm system being installed.

The crawl space has been fully restored and repaired and the vents will no longer allow water to flow into the basement. An enlarged access door has been opened up in a hallway so they can use the attic for storage and give them access to the fire suppression system.

The pillars that were out front were made of brick and had been damaged due to occassional collisions from vehicles. The contractor recalled that there were steel pillars inside. The brick was removed and the steel restored.

The roof was has been completely replaced with 50 year architectural grade shingles.

There was some X-Ray equipment still in the building that contained hazardous materials. A special engineer was hired to handle the removal. He explained to the crew how to dismantle all of the equipment and thanks to his guidance they knew what could be recycled.

They are now waiting on an electrical engineer to finish the design for the power supply. Once this is approved by the Fire Marshall they can begin construction of the new walls. They are taking out an immense amount of electrical wiring, etc. so they won’t be using nearly the power as before.

They will repurposing many cabinets, desks and chairs, however, in the fall they will be having a sale to dispose of all of the leftover furnishings and doors, as well as toilets.

The sprinkler system is working and the grass is looking healthier every day.

The old juniper that took up valuable play space and blocked the A/C units have been removed.

A fundraiser started in May of 2023 soared past its goal of $100,000.00 in less than 90 days, with Valley residents showing their support and love for the new project. Childcare is seriously lacking in the Valley and a contributing factor to young families not being able to stay here. The Valley Village Childcare project can’t remedy this problem entirely, but it is certainly going to help a good deal. The Excel/Valley Village partnership is for the benefit of the children, it is a 501 © (3).