My Resene Colour Your Community nomination

Emily from Normandale

Nestled in Lower Hutt's western hills is Maungaraki Playcentre! An early childhood centre that has tamariki and their supporting whanau learning through play. We are an integral part of our local community, a place of support for parents of young children, and a place to develop long-lasting relationships in the community, for the whole family. We believe in parents and whanau as first teachers of children and we follow their lead in play. Our sessions comprise of many areas of play, including big muscle, exploration, music, carpentry, science, gardening, and creating.

Currently we have 30 children ranging from new-born to almost school age attending across our three sessions. We also have a SPACE new parent group who meet weekly and where 15 babies from new-born to 12 months old attend over the course of three terms. We are a busy centre that has the joyful atmosphere of children doing what they do best, playing! And we have their development through play at the forefront of everything we do.

We have had redecorating our driveway and fort on our to-do list for a long time. However, lately some pressing safety concern jobs like replacing deteriorated guttering and damaged weather curtains have consumed our finances and focus. We would love to spend some time beautifying and brightening up our centre rather than property maintenance task, although important they don’t add that magic touch our centre very much deserves.

Our driveway and fort are both pavement facing so we would love for them to be as appealing as possible, for our current Playcentre whanau and for prospective families walking by or visiting us. Currently our driveway is a mix of an unfinished mural that we have attempted to clean off, an unused hopscotch, and some random paint designs. We envision a beautiful, inviting mural for this space.

Our fort is fading and in much need of staining or painting to bring it back to life. While the tamariki do enjoy picking up a brush and painting parts of the fort themselves, we’d love to completely refresh this much-loved play area. We like the idea of rainbows to brighten the entranceway and fort. These being the first visual points of contact for our centre, we’d love to outwardly showcase the joy and aroha that you find just beyond our gate!

Thank you so much for this opportunity