Guardian St Kilda Road Connect with the Local Community
Guardian Early Learning Centre – St Kilda Road have been developing new and strengthening old community partnerships with a series of fundraisers and programs.
Centre Manager, Erin, shared some of the centre’s ongoing partnerships and recent fundraising efforts, and how the children are getting involved.
As we spoke, the centre was celebrating National Pyjama Day, where Educators and children dressed in their cosiest pyjamas to raise money for MacKillop Family Services South Melbourne.
“I’m a foster parent myself, so I was able to share my personal connect with the children and tell them about my own foster children,” shares Erin.
“The Pyjama Day fundraiser was from a really personal and meaningful level which is really nice.”
St Kilda Road is also a stockist for the Melbourne Entertainment Book. For each book sold, the centre gets to donate 20% of the sale to a charity of their choice.
“We’ve been stockists for the Melbourne Entertainment Book for over two years, and it’s been a really great way to raise money for the Starlight Foundation,” says Erin.
“We chose the Starlight Foundation as a few of our Educators have a close connection to it. We love being able to raise awareness and funds for them as an ongoing initiative.”
The centre also has ongoing partnerships with a number of community groups, including neighbouring business Probuild and The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School.
Students from The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School come to the centre once a week for a Mini Maestros program, where they give guitar, violin, piano and vocals lessons to the four– five-year-olds.
“The children love it! We’ve had quite a few declare that they want to become professional musicians when they get older,” laughs Erin.
Partnering with Probuild, an architectural firm in their building who donates old blueprints, has been a real highlight for the centre.
“I’ve worked really hard to develop a solid relationship with the team at Probuild, and now we give them updates on what children are doing with the blueprints and how they are impacted by them,” shares Erin.
The children’s drawings have gotten a lot more creative since using the blueprints. Instead of drawing a square with a triangle as a house, they’re incorporating curves and interesting shapes that they’ve seen on the blueprints or out the windows in the Melbourne community.
“A lot of the children want to become architects now, which is really exciting as they’re only four. It’s amazing that pieces of paper, which would go to recycling if we didn’t want them, have had such an effect on the future aspirations of the children,” says Erin.
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