To those who think we only dig negative stories, please follow our coverage of the Park House School House, which we think is a model of creative people in a community coming together to create something wonderful from what could have been a disaster. Yesterday, we bemoaned the lack of a logo for the new school, but ask and ye shall recieve. There’s also a website under construction at www.parkslopeschoolhouse.org.
One of the organizers emailed us to say:
We are so excited to be doing this, it’s really been such an amazing experience, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some incredibly talented and dedicated people who, on top of being parents of young children, also all have extremely demanding full time jobs, so getting this baby airbourne was, quite simply, a miracle. At times it was heart-wrenching and there were so many obstacles to overcome in such a short timeframe, but there were so many wonderful people and organizations without whom we would never have made it including FCNY who is helping us with cash flow financing, New York Methodist Hospital, especially Lyn Hill and Mark Mundy, who gave us a lease extension until our new space is renovated, Helen Halverson, the long-time, beloved former director (retired) of the BC Child Care Center who gave us hours of help and advice, Berkeley Carroll who is helping with transition matters and is donating all of the supplies and contents of the current facility to the new school, Kate Neckel, who designed our logo…Sonnenstein Nath & Rosenthal who is pro-bono counsel on incorporation, lease & 501c3 matters and our architecture firm, Platt Byard Dovell & White (they also did the Poly Prep addition and one of our parents is an architect there), Susan Fox and Park Slope Parents (tours were “sold out” within a couple of days after posting on the site!), our staff, our teachers and our families and many, many others along the way. This really was a community effort and all of these folks deserve kudos and all are a huge part of our success.
Some of the parents who volunteered their time and energy won’t even have children in the program next year, but were committed to preserving the school so that others can share in what we feel is an exceptional program. The support we are getting from the community has been incredible and we are
doing our very best to make this a top notch program that fills a unique niche for childcare options in the hood!
We’ve had harsh things to say about a couple of the insitutions mentioned here, but credit is due to those to whom it is due. By the way, if anyone wants to hit us off with similar uplifting stories from other communities, especially less affluent ones, we more than welcome them. We truly want them. Email us at thegowanuslounge (at) gmail (dot) com.
