General News
2 October, 2024
Re-opened child care centre was a labour of love
Corlia Pienaar and her husband Johan spent more than $30,000 of their own money to restore the centre.
Corlia Pienaar says the decision to quit her job as a school chaplain and dedicate herself full-time to reopening St Paul’s Lutheran Church child care centre is the realisation of a lifelong dream.
Mrs Pienaar has endured thousands of hours of unpaid labour, countless late nights and numerous weekend working bees over the past 11 months that have finally paid off – with the centre opening last week.
The first five students were enrolled in the revamped facility last Monday and the hunt is now on for a bachelor-qualified Early Childhood Teacher, which will enable the facility to grow to 25 students across the 0-2, 2-3 and 3+ age groups before the end of the year.
The centre has plans to grow to 59 students in 2025 and has the capacity for 92 students.
Mrs Pienaar, who is the inaugural director of the new facility, said the centre already had a long waiting list for new enrolments, especially for babies aged over eight months.
The opening is the culmination of ten long months of hard work to renovate the facility and meet the government certification requirements.
Mrs Pienaar, who had been involved in establishing a small primary school in South Africa before migrating to Australia, said she had always wanted to operate a child care centre.
After a private operator announced its plans to close the facility, providing only a few weeks’ notice via a Facebook post, the St Paul’s congregation saw the facility’s renewal as a major project for the Church at the end of last year.
Steering the centre back to being operational fell on the shoulders of Mrs Pienaar, who is a Church council member and had been working as a school chaplain at the School of the Air, Mount Special School and Central State School.
Mrs Pienaar had initially thought the project would take a few months and was planning for an April reopening.
However, it quickly became apparent the monumental task ahead so Mrs Pienaar decided to leave her job and dedicate herself full-time to reopening the childcare centre.
Mrs Pienaar says her husband Johan also became committed to the project, finishing his workday at Mount Isa Mines and driving across town to paint, plaster and build until the very late hours, day-in, day-out. She estimates Johan has given more than 3000 hours to the project.
Neither received any payment for the tasks. As the new centre director, Mrs Pienaar is also yet to take a salary. Instead, the couple estimates they spent about $30,000 to $40,000 of their own money to assist in completing the project.
Mrs Pienaar said the Church contributed more than $120,000 and about $20,000 was donated by local businesses.
The dilapidated facility required new perimeter fencing, the reconstruction of three of the four playgrounds and sandpit areas to meet safety requirements, new carpets, re-turfing, new bike tracks and a thorough clean-out involving countless new coats of paint.
The centre also hired a consultant to assist with the mountainous paperwork required to become fully compliant with all laws, while an architect was employed to redesign the building layout.
Mrs Pienaar said the facility was now fully compliant and was reaching the final stages of qualifying for the child care subsidy system with the federal government.
“I think the extra time it has taken to reach the point where we can open has actually made the centre even better,” she said.
“From the moment I got involved I have been getting calls from parents who wanted their children enrolled.
“It has been a long road, but I hope people will be very pleased with the result.”