A groundbreaking ceremony was held Sunday for a new childcare centre at Quatsino K'ak'ot'lats'i School. The
Quatsino First Nations received a major capital grant from the Ministry of Children and Family Development to
build a new childcare centre for 28 children. "We started working on the project about a year
ago," said Volunteer Project Manager, Corine Sagmeister. "As soon as we were told we would get the funds,
we formed a committee of community members and spent the last year putting together a plan and a vision.
We started out with the idea of a small daycare centre, which is what the funding is for, but the community had
a different vision. They wanted to make it more of a facility for children, elders, and parents who want access to
a literary centre." The requirements of the funding is to build on school grounds, and to be a licensed,
accessible and quality daycare program. The construction of the centre, which is being done by Built
Contracting, will begin the week of March 14 and the tentative opening date is September 2016."We brought in
an architect, Scott Kemp, to draw out their vision. The original idea of the building was to be as green as
possible. We're going to collect rainwater and it's going to feed a garden," said Sagmeister. "The garden will be
a nice addition to the centre. It will help the kids learn about healthy foods."Children in the centre will have the
opportunity to learn through play and exploration with others their age under the guidance of caring, qualified
adults. Language and culture will be the foundation of the program and all areas of development will be
considered when creating curriculum and programming. "We're pretty excited," said Sagmeister, adding that
"we're a young community, there's lot of young families, lots of young children, and now that there's going to be
a daycare centre built, we've got the piece that's been missing for a long time."