BestStart Queenstown has moved into a temporary home at Shotover Primary School, a little over a fortnight after its Hamilton Rd daycare centre was flooded during last month’s storm.
BestStart Educare deputy chief executive Fiona Hughes says it’s been operating in one of the school’s ‘‘habitats’’ — along with an outdoor space — since last Tuesday.
It started with about 45 children, with the remainder of the 75 kids for which the daycare is licensed set to join them in the coming days, including some who’ve been accommodated at BestStart’s Hanley’s Farm centre.
Hughes says she’s amazed at how staff, parents and the wider community rallied to the cause after water and silt rose 8cm up the walls of its Hamilton Rd premises during last month’s storm.
After its initial efforts to find temporary premises proved fruitless, BestStart sent an SOS to the Ministry of Education, which in turn put the word out to Queenstown schools.
Shotover Primary principal Ben Witheford and its board had been ‘‘extremely accommodating’’, she says.
‘‘They’ve bent over backwards to help us get established there.’’
She’s also grateful for the way parents and the wider community had rallied to help with what initially seemed like an ‘‘insurmountable’’ task of cleaning up the mess and then helping move the centre’s furniture, equipment and learning materials to the school.
Its landlord, Trojan Holdings, had also been ‘‘exceptionally quick’’ to act in the initial clean-up and prepare the building and grounds for
the repair project.
The repairs, expected to take 10 weeks, involve new wall linings, floor coverings and cabinetry, as well as repainting and a new playground.
