resources, time and talent to support the vision for serving the community. This budget includes the maintenance of the building and the pastor’s salary. The creation of Reaching for Rainbows took approximately 20 hours/week to get started.  They also offered their hall and their kitchen. Until year 8 of the program, this small congregation covered all the costs of the space, utilities, insurance, snow removal and on it goes as well as covering salary as the coordinator of the Reaching for Rainbows vision. And the rest of the St. Andrew’s staff who oversee the property, cut the lawn, and manage the gardens are all volunteers.  It is their generosity, their gifts, their volunteer time, their building that sustained this program especially during its early stages.

The Presbyterian Church in Canada gave $25,000 over the first 3 years. A grant from the Stark Foundation for $2000 bought everything in the room. All of the local service clubs contributed-Rotary, Kinsmen, Lion’s, the Women’s Institute and members of the wider community were generous. The budget for year 1 was $20,000 to pay for one part-time staff person.

Items were purchased to create the space, the job description for the Director was written and all of the protocols for the Ministry of Education were articulated and followed.  Reaching for Rainbows officially opened in 2012 with 12 girls from grades 1 and 2 attending Tues-Wed-Thurs.  The team then expanded, principals from both local schools were engaged along with the owner of Sobey’s. A logo, rack cards and a ‘speaking tour’ were all planned and coordinated to both inform the community and to raise money. The first Executive Director was brought on to work with the Ministry of Education, schedule volunteers, send out a newsletter to the growing community of donors and many other leadership roles as the program moved forward. Among the paperwork was the creation of official application forms for parents. 

A number of girls were identified for the program and so expansion to two days a week for the grades 1 and 2 girls and two days a week for the grades 3 and 4 girls began in year 3. Reaching for Rainbows partnered with Community Living and the program began to flourish.

In year 4 the perfect Program Director emerged and her leadership in the playroom, her ability to mentor volunteers, her ease with the children and her grace with the parents brought stability to the playroom so that the steering committee could focus on fundraising and sustainability.  Jane Wollenberg carries with her this wonderful legacy and we are proud to have her as the Emeritus Chair at Reaching for Rainbows - still thinking about the importance of inclusion and bringing opportunities to the organization as they arise.

From the beginning, this was a grass-roots community initiative—the founding team working overtime but constantly growing with community members, service clubs, women’s groups, school staff, neighbours, not-for-profit partners and committed volunteers; all working together because of a longing for a world where there was a seat at the table for everyone.  A huge thanks to the countless community members who toiled to get Rainbows to where we are today.

Raising the money was always a challenge and with such a successful program, the budget increased substantially every year because of the immense amount of attention to detail that is required to run a licensed childcare centre. So in year 8 the Steering Committee determined that Reaching for Rainbows would become an independent not-for-profit and registered charity and here we are today!  An independent registered charity and not for profit organization that takes a play-based approach to empowering girls in an after school program that was a labour of love from a rural, south-eastern Ontario community.