Holland’s little red schoolhouse opens

Holland – HUMmingbird Daycare Ministry’s little red schoolhouse officially opened its doors to children on Monday.

The nearly two year project to expand the 26-year-old ministry from its former location in the lower portion of the Holland United Methodist Church is now a point of pride for the small southwest Dubois County town.

The process to get to this point symbolizes many things for the Holland community. It symbolizes the vibrancy of a community some consider to be waning. But an award-winning elementary school, iconic industry, solid farm families, a beautiful park and tremendous community pride dash the idea this community is dying to pieces.

“We chose red because it symbolizes our community,” Angie Sander, the HUMmingbird Daycare Ministry director, said. “When you think of the town of Holland, you think of the Holland Dairy, whose logo is red. Woods Printing, whose logo is red, German American, which had its roots here as Holland Bank, is red again. Southridge is red. And, of course, the Holland United Methodist Church is red.”

Turning an abandoned restaurant into what many in the community now refer to as their little red schoolhouse took a tremendous amount of volunteer help and a little bit of divine intervention according to Sander. “It always seemed that when we needed something or some job done and had no idea how it was going to happen, someone would come forward and fill that need.”

Over the last six years the daycare has doubled to 125 children. Sander saw the need to expand several years ago, but it wasn’t until the fall of 2011 when Jerry and Betty Blesch, long-time Holland United Methodist Church members, donated the former building that housed the Dutch Haus Restaurant building to the daycare.

Church members Paul and Gloria Lindsey became involved and began planning the construction. Work began with groups filling the needs throughout the week, but the majority of the volunteers appeared on the weekends.

“There were many groups that came in over the weekends to help. The Holland Fire Fighters helped with construction over the weekends, we had volunteers from Ferdinand, and even a whole church from Paoli volunteered on a Saturday,” Sander said. “A minister in Paoli was at the Holland church when I first started at the daycare, and he brought a group down as a local mission.”

Sander can go back through sign in sheets she has from the project to see how many people volunteered, “but I can’t tell you exactly who volunteered because many people just wrote down their first names.”

Regardless they came from everywhere to help tear down parts of the existing structure and begin to rebuild the abandoned building. Whole sections had to be replaced. On one wall only ten original studs remained from the original wall when crews were done rebuilding it.

They added a new wing, changing the flat ranch-style building into an L-shaped structure with multiple classrooms. Classrooms with names like The Jellyfish, Abraham Stars (after the biblical story), Little Flutters and walls painted with bright colors.

“We let the teachers pick the color combinations and then Paul Wehr (owner of Combined Talents and a Huntingburg-based interior designer) told us what hues of those colors to use together,” Sander explained.

And even tiny kid-sized bathrooms attached to each classroom.

Some areas of the building have been named for large benefactors like the Lange Library, a library space with books that will be available for the community made possible by a donation from Clem Lange. There is a Paul and Gloria Lindsey Wing for all of their contributions to the project and, of course, the Jerry and Betty Blesch Wing is the original building.

The Dubois County Community Foundation made a $10,000 grant to the project and many churches made contributions. “St. James in Holland matched every dollar the congregation donated,” Sander said. “One parishioner gave a $1000.”

The opening day on Monday found the kids so excited they didn’t want to eat breakfast, they just wanted to keep playing.

“I’ve said for a long time that our facility never really truly matched our philosophy,” Sander said, “but now, we’ve created a facility that is right in line with our vision.”

The need for daycare is apparent, the new facility splits the children between infants and toddlers in the church and the preschoolers to school age kids in the new building. They now have room for 140 children and have 125 enrolled with expectations to reach full capacity soon. “The board president and his wife are already talking about expanding the infant program,” Sander said.

The board has a two-year plan, a five-year plan and ten-year plan for the expansion, but currently, number-wise, they are already almost at their five-year goal. “We didn’t want to cap out the ability to expand and we are pretty excited about how things have gone,” Sander said, “but I’m not ready to take on another building project just yet. We are ready to accommodate the need as it grows.”

The daycare is now concentrating on attaining national accreditation through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Once they obtain this accreditation they will be one of the very few registered daycare ministries accredited by this  association in the region.

With all they have accomplished through divine intervention and the efforts of volunteers, Sander still finds it amazing. “It’s been a miracle how so many things have fallen in place,” she said. “We met with Brad Ward (CEO DC Community Foundation) and he said, ‘How are you going to pay for this?’ And we just looked at each other and said, ‘well, God’s gonna provide.’ There were times when we questioned whether it was going to come together but everything’s come together and it’s been amazing. The support from the community has been amazing.”

Facebook photos of the construction process.