Photo: Jeanette Leary, left, current director of Community Playschool in North Newton, gathered several past directors for a photo at the preschool’s 50-year anniversary party. Continuing from left, Bonnie Krehbiel, Mary Ann Jost, Mary Rempel, Judy Friesen and Eunice Kerbs. Photo by Melanie Zuercher. 

When the needs of a community meet its resources at the right place and time, the result is an enduring institution.

That’s the case for Community Playschool, located at Bethel College Mennonite Church (BCMC) in North Newton, Kansas, which is turning 50 this year.

In 1965, Mary Ellen Meyer, now of Goshen, Indiana, was raising five children with her husband, Al, then dean at Bethel College. She was also chair of the mission commission at BCMC, one of three Mennonite congregations in Newton/North Newton at the time, along with Faith Mennonite Church and First Mennonite Church.

“We didn’t do a lot cooperatively,” Meyer recalls. “The three chairs [of the churches’ mission committees] got together to talk about what we could do to reach out to the community cooperatively. Our questions were: What gifts do we have? and What are the needs?”

An “Evangelism Workshop” incorporating local resource people Oct. 1-2, 1965, brought to light the challenges that some of the clients served by the local Welfare Office faced.

“We were looking at the needs of single mothers with small children who didn’t have resources,” Meyer says. “This coincided with interest in Headstart and with research being done with brain development in early childhood that showed the importance of early stimulation for reading and future learning.”

In May 1966, what would become Community Playschool began with 6-9 children and about a dozen volunteers from the churches, meeting at First Mennonite Church one day a week.

The idea was to give the mothers some time off and get the children involved in enrichment activities.

“We had done reading on the kind of atmosphere that helps learning,” Meyer says. “Learning to focus and to interact with others was important. We had games, puzzles and other activities.”

Mary Ann Jost of North Newton, also from BCMC, was one of the first volunteers. “Mary Ellen called to see if I’d be interested,” Jost says. “I had done some work in early childhood education in graduate school and I had some experience with preschool children.”

In addition to providing foundational education for the young children, part of the goal of the project was to develop relationships with their mothers. Jost and another early volunteer, Mary Rempel, transplanted to Hesston from British Columbia, and were most involved in the parents’ group in the early days, Jost says.

Once a month, the mothers were invited to come to playschool with their children. “While the children were in their class, we talked about nutrition, tried out recipes and talked about child-raising,” Rempel says.

Within two years of the preschool’s beginning, the Meyer family relocated to Indiana. Jost and Rempel continued their involvement with the preschool, which adopted the name Community Playschool in 1967 when it was licensed by the State of Kansas.

Jost served as director from 1968, when the preschool moved from First Mennonite Church to Bethel College Mennonite Church, until 1973, when Rempel and Ardys Becker became co-directors.

Rempel has been involved off and on throughout Community Playschool’s history. She is currently a board member, representing supporting congregation Shalom Mennonite Church – others, in addition to BCMC and Faith, are First Presbyterian Church, Newton, and Grace Hill Mennonite Church, rural Newton.

In 2015-16, Community Playschool had 40 students and 17 volunteer teachers, in addition to a paid director, currently Jeanette Leary. The preschool is open four days a week. The parents’ group no longer meets regularly but parents continue to be involved in various ways.

Although the school has always been a church effort, it was never overtly religious – although, Jost pointed out in an interview she did at the time of the school’s 20th anniversary, there has never been a question the preschool is faith-based.

“Our idea of laying a foundation of religious values and teaching is more in how we relate to the children and their families,” she said, “the caring and concern we can show them.”

Fifty years on, Jost credits much of the preschool’s success to “dedicated people, both the volunteers and the directors” (the teaching staff has always been all-volunteer; directors began receiving a modest salary fairly early on).

“Sometimes something that seems small, that comes from a modest spark, meets a need and is presented to people with the ideas and resources to run with it,” says Meyer. “Then who knows what can happen?”

Three generations have gotten a start at Community Playschool

It started with volleyball.

About 50 years ago, Yolanda Garcia was a young mother in Newton who heard about a new preschool from some women she played volleyball with.

She decided to enroll her daughter, Maria. Now Maria’s granddaughter is the third generation in her family to attend Community Playschool.

Maria (Garcia) Avila doesn’t remember a lot from her playschool days decades ago. But here’s what she does recall:

“I remember the wooden play equipment” – it’s still there in the classroom. “It was always fun to come and play with the other kids. My teacher was Mary Ann [Jost]. I liked the cooking. I came for two years, then I started school.”

In due time, Maria had two small daughters, Marina and Jasmin. “Since I went here [to playschool], I put my girls in here, so they would experience getting to know the basics, and having friends and learning to share. I wanted them to have the same experiences I had.”

Jasmin (Avila) Blocher followed her older sister Marina at Community Playschool.

“My favorite thing was peeling and coring apples to make applesauce,” she says. “I remember totally adoring Bonnie [Krehbiel, a long-time playschool director who retired several years ago] – I still do. I remember my grandma and grandpa coming to school to sing Mexican songs.”

“We always celebrated Cinco de Mayo at playschool,” Maria adds, “so one year when Marina was here, Mom and Dad, Marcelo and Yolanda Garcia, came and brought the organ and maracas. They played and sang Mexican songs and we had mini-tostadas with cheese, beans and salsa.”

Now Jasmin has three little girls.

“I knew for sure I was going to send them somewhere,” she says. “We looked here and at one other. I have a special place in my heart for this place. I wanted that same experience for my kids.”

She adds, “There’s a really good classroom size, a good student-to-teacher ratio. The smaller setting means the kids get the most out of it they can.”

Gabi Blocher represents the third generation of Community Playschool students in her extended family. Her sister Isabelle will join her next fall, and can’t wait, Jasmin says.