Heartberries Nature Preschool
Donation protected
Many parents of Port Townsend have struggled to find high quality, affordable care for their children. A school also focused on holistic development, set in nature, and with people of color in the lead is essentially unheard of in this community. This is exactly the treasure that Heartberries Preschool offers to this town. A small school with plans for growth, Heartberries touts an ethnically diverse group of teachers grounded in both their love of the natural world and their love of children.
Heartberries was originally founded as a parent-cooperative that provided a model for safe and accessible care for pre-schoolers during the pandemic. This Spring, when the parent leadership could no longer take on the task of running the school, the program found itself facing potential demise. Chasity, one of the teachers, was called upon to bear the torch of leading the school into a new phase. Excited to fulfill her long-held dream of creating a nature school for children, Chasity Sade has since put in over 200 hours of unpaid labor transforming Heartberries into a teacher-run all-outdoors nature pre-school with a focus on multi-cultural immersion.
A woman of African heritage, Chasity is a mother, naturalist, Earth-tender, and mentor to youth. Supporting worldwide revival of Indigenous culture, celebrating the beauty of cultural diversity, embracing queerness, and upholding social justice are all dear to her heart. For the last three years, she has found her bliss in leading nature immersion and exploration classes for children ages two to thirteen. In addition to running Heartberries Preschool, Chasity is a single mother who home-schools her two children, a house cleaner, a homestead manager, and the director of a non-profit organization called Earthee.
Heartberries Preschool currently has a capacity to serve twelve families, with a hope to provide four full-scholarships for families in need.
A fundraising goal of $24,000 has been established to fund these scholarships and to pay Chasity for her unpaid labor, allowing low-income families to receive quality private childcare and supporting black female leadership in alternative education.
Please help Heartberries Preschool continue to serve our community.
We express our deep gratitude to all who contribute and to all who have made this school what it is today.
Visit our website at http://www.heartberries.org/
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Organizer
Chasity Sade-Griffin
Organizer
Port Townsend, WA