Heritage Academy’s Early Learning Academy (HELA) is set to open Aug. 9 for the 2021-2022 school year. The construction began at the tail end of 2020, and the building is taking shape. Beth Westergreen, director of HELA, is encouraged by the progress.
“They’re over there working — R.W. Allen — literally all the time. My husband and I drove by on Easter, and they were over there working,” Westergreen said. “It’s awesome to watch it come to life.”
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There is a house-warming event of sorts coming in early June for HELA. Westergreen called the event the “baby shower.”
“We have 10 classrooms: three infant rooms, three toddler rooms, two K-3 and two K-4. We thought it would be fun to get the community involved in furnishing them,” Westergreen said. “We created a baby registry and thought it would be fun to have a baby shower. I reached out to people, some former employees and asked if they would take the idea to their church or their community.”
Some donations came off the registry and others were purely monetary donations that the HELA team could purchase materials with on their own.
Westergreen said the cost to furnish each room is about $3,000, so any donations from an individual or church or community member has gone toward filling the rooms up with essentials such as cribs, books, toys and diaper pails.
“It’s been enormously helpful,” Westergreen said. “Every day is like Christmas.”
The baby shower is a drop-in on June 5 from noon to 2 p.m.
The staff is coming together, but Westergreen said there are still some roles to fill. The new building calls for 10 teachers, a cook and some other support personnel they haven’t nailed down the exact numbers on yet.
HELA and the original Heritage Academy are separated by Greene Street and are totally self-sufficient. However, Westergreen said that some of the older kids might visit HELA to read to the younger children somewhere down the line.
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The application process has been open for months, and the spots are almost full, Westergreen said. She added that the two-year-old demographic has been the most commonly-seen application.
“We’ve had this vision for a long time and it’s coming together,” Westergreen said. “It’s special when I tell these families, ‘We’ve got a spot for your child’ and they break into tears… We’re excited to see this dream become a reality.”
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com.
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