Story
In September, 1981 Mr. Lloyd Jackson gave his approval for the formation of a Child care Centre within South-western Regional Centre. The months that followed consisted of many long hours of decision-making and planning by 10 individuals who made up the Board of Directors, combined with the valuable assistance of Ministry Consultants, Anita Jackson and Ronna Katzman.
A start-up fund received from the Ministry of Community and Social Services and monetary and moral support from South-western Regional Centre's (SRC) management and staff, allowed the Centre to purchase equipment, toys and structural changes, which we felt were required to develop the type of environment we had envisioned.
A "Director" and qualified teaching staff were selected and began creating activity plans for the children and adding all the finishing touches. Finally, on June 10, 1983, the Growing Together Family Resource Centre became operational.
In October, 1994 the Growing Together at St. Anne's location opened with assistance from the St. Clair Catholic District School Board.
In September 1996 GTFRC and the Blenheim Nursery School merged and the Growing Together Childcare Centre opened at the Blenheim Leisure Centre.
In September 1999 the infant program opened at the Glad Tidings Church site. The program at SRC was completely closed in December 1999.
In September 2002, we opened in a wing at Harwich Raleigh Public School. This facility would include our preschool (2 yrs) through to school age (11yrs). Infants and Toddlers moved into the St. Anne's location. At this time the sites at the Leisure Centre and the Glad Tidings Church were closed.
In Sept 2004, we partnered once again with the St. Clair Catholic District School Board to provide before and after school programs for students attending St. Mary's and St. Anne's schools.
In Sept 2006, we opened full day preschool, Jk wrap and ELP programs at St. Mary's. ELP was also offered at Harwich Raleigh.
In 2007 Growing Together expanded into the Hub that was built onto W.J. Baird school. A full range of services are offered there including infants, toddlers, preschool, JK/K wrap-around, ELP and school age.
In September 2009 Growing Together at St. Mary's merged with Growing Together at St. Anne's to provide care for Toddler to School aged children.
January 5, 2015 Growing Together took on the operations of the former May Court Childcare Learning Centre and opened it's first Chatham based location.