A daycare facility in northern Greene County has made a sudden change to their building project.

Paton-Churdan Early Learning Center Board President Cassie Fiedler says they moved away from looking to renovate a church that their organization purchased to better fit their needs to now building a new structure to the west of the P-C school building. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio their Board and the P-C school administration have partnered together, where the pre-kindergarten program will continue to be housed with them and the school will lease a room in the new facility.

Fiedler points out the new building will be a modular-style structure that will be built at the manufacturer in Indiana and then placed on a foundation on site in Churdan to be completed. She describes the new features as increasing their rooms from three to six, which allows for better staff to children ratio and gives space for non-mobile and mobile newborns and toddlers. She explains that there will also be a kitchen and storage, which they don’t currently have and a tornado safe room. The total cost is estimated at $1.9 million, which Fiedler says they have reached their initial goal of raising $600,000 to apply for a matching grant from Iowa Economic Development Authority.

“And that primarily comes from Grow Greene (County Gaming Corporation) which pledged $400,000 to us over two years, and then the (Greene) County Supervisors have pledged $180,000 over five years. And then we do have a few businesses in the county that have given early commitments to push us over that $600,000.” 

Fielder appreciates all of the work from everyone involved, from having to make the choice to move into this new direction and where they are today.

“Once we switched gears, it felt like we had a lot of momentum. We’ve put in a lot of time (including) our board members and even the school administrators trying to get this done and make this a reality. Because we all are very supportive of our community up there, are excited to see this come together.”  

Fiedler notes that they still need additional funds to pull the project completely together and so donations can be made via their website, by clicking the link below, or to the United Bank of Iowa in Churdan. She adds that if the grant is awarded, the project could start as early as this year. 

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/new-building-project