Daycare reopens nearly two years after Tantallon-area wildfires

Nearly two years after burning down in a wildfire, a daycare in Hammonds Plains, N.S., has reopened.

ForestKids Early Learning Organization held its grand reopening Saturday. It’s a day executive director Terri Kottwitz has been waiting for.

“Everybody’s just so wonderful and so grateful. I don’t really have words probably to say without turning into tears for sadness and happiness at the same time,” she said.

“We’ve had so many people help us. The entire building has been built by the community, social media community, and the help of the government, so we’re pretty proud to have it here today.”

Kottwitz lost both her daycare business and her home when the Tantallon-area wildfires broke out in May 2023.

“We spent a very long time sorting ourselves out to what to do. We didn’t have insurance on that building,” said Kottwitz.

After the fire, the daycare was able to move the children into a nearby church. Eventually, trailers were installed on the daycare’s property, until the new buildings were finished.

Before it burned down, ForestKids was a private centre. Kottwitz said it’s now a non-profit.

“We became non-profit so we could have help to get it built and get the children in faster,” she said. “Our board for the non-profit is awesome. The people at the government have doubled over to help us get this building.”

Kottwitz said both the federal and provincial governments provided funding to the centre. Saturday was the grand reopening but she said the children have already been back.

“As soon as we were able to license it, we worked really hard to get it licensed, we worked day and night to have this place ready, so the children have been in for one month,” she said.

“After today, we can finally get settled and get back into our groups.”

The centre is already full, even after it was able to gain an extra 13 spaces. Kottwitz said it’s now licensed for 93 children, ranging in ages from three months to 10 years.

Kottwitz said she misses the old space but the new centre is great.

“The old building was very old, so it didn’t have any upgrades to it at all. It was just a really old building, so now we’re in a brand-new building with wonderful lighting, security system, fire system, so it’s way better for the children,” she said.

Now she said she’s looking forward to having the children get back into nature – a key focus of ForestKids.

“All of our children are in by animal groups. So, the bear cubs go to the woods on a daily basis and they haven’t been able to do that since the fire, so this set of bear cubs will start going to the forest tomorrow,” said Kottwitz.

“They’ll spend their entire day there, their entire week there, and the smaller children from 18 months to four will be going to the woods on a regular basis two or three times a week for two to three hours at a time.”

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