Current and former students and their families gather at Coastal Kids Preschool in Damariscotta to celebrate the preschools 30th birthday on Saturday, April 4. The event featured fence painting to create an art installation at the preschool, live music, food, and a trip down memory lane with photos of all the graduating classes lining the walls. (Christina Brown photo)
After 30 years of providing preschoolers with inclusive education, students both current and former gathered to celebrate Coastal Kids Preschool’s birthday with food, games, and hallways filled with memories on Saturday, April 4.
The event was organized by the board of directors for the Damariscotta school and by Executive Director Jenn Caron, who has worked at Coastal Kids Preschool since 1999. Caron said the administrative team started discussions for the celebration in the fall.
“We wanted to find a balance of fundraising and just giving back to the community that’s given so much to us,” Caron said. “We knew we definitely wanted to do a community event to give back to the community, to have it free, and then have alumni and current students come.”
Lining the hallway and classroom walls were posters of all of the school’s graduating classes. A slideshow played throughout the event featuring even more photos of students throughout the years.
Parents, students, and community members had the opportunity to paint fence boards as a part of an installation art piece for the preschool.
“We were thinking about doing an installation piece that stayed here, something we could either put on the walls or something that we could show the community,” Caron said. “It’s something we can carry on and have the graduating class do each spring, and we can add to it.”
During the event, children had the opportunity to weave pieces of yarn into a tapestry that would be added to the walls of the school.
Students from Lincoln Academy in Newcastle sang and played guitar during the event, taking song requests from the participants. Caron said the idea was to have a student-led jam session and thought bringing in students from LA would be the perfect addition.
She said the event was a collaboration between the administrative team, teachers, parents, and students, both current and former.
“It’s just a whole bunch of people coming together and being open for other ideas,” Caron said. “Everyone has some uniqueness that they bring to the table, because that’s what Coastal Kids really is.”
Coastal Kids Preschool, at 12 Jackie’s Trail in Damariscotta, began in 1995 as a response to a local shortage of preschool options for children with special needs, as well as for typically developing children.
According to the school’s written history and founder Priscilla Congdon, the idea grew out of a collaboration among School Union 74, now AOS 93, Child Development Services, Healthy Kids, and the Center for Community Inclusion at the University of Maine. At the time, nearly half of the children entering kindergarten in Union 74 had not attended preschool, including many whose families earned too much to qualify for Head Start but still lacked access to early education.
Congdon said the goal was to create an inclusive program that would be open to all children.
“We believe that every preschool child, regardless of income or ability, should have an opportunity to reach their full potential,” Congdon said.
Congdon answered an ad from Lincoln County Children’s Services in 1995 to help launch an inclusive preschool program because the program’s focus on inclusion immediately resonated with her.
“It sparked my interest, because it talked about inclusive programming back when I first started, which was back in the ‘70s; inclusivity was not part of the common thinking, special-purpose programs were separate,” Congdon said.
What began as a program she expected to help launch for three years instead became a long-term commitment after the public-school partnership did not materialize because of budget cuts.
When the original sponsors could no longer continue underwriting the effort, Congdon said the nonprofit paperwork was handed over to her in a couple of boxes, and she and a small board of parents took over.
“I knew nothing about running a nonprofit,” Congdon said. “So, I put together a board with three parents who knew a little bit about nonprofits. We had a president, a secretary, and a treasurer. In those early days, it was really just, you know, scraping by.”
Coastal Kids started at Bremen Grade School on Waldoboro Road in Bremen in October 1995. When the town decided to turn the building into the Bremen town office, the preschool in the Homeport Plaza in Newcastle in 1997. The preschool moved to the Midcoast Friends Meeting House on Belvedere Road in Damariscotta in 1999 before the board decided the school should own its own building, Congdon said.
With help from community members and funding from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development loan and the Genesis Community Loan Fund, a nonprofit community development financial institution, the school purchased the older part of its current building in Damariscotta in early 2006.
After renovations to comply with licensing and fire code requirements were completed, the school opened in its new location in February of that year.
As the school began to outgrow its space, the board launched a capital campaign in 2009, raising more than $200,000 by 2011 toward an expansion supported by additional funding from another USDA Rural Development loan, the Genesis Community Loan Fund, and Bath Savings Institution.
During construction, the school temporarily operated in two locations, returning to the Midcoast Friends Meeting House on Belvedere Road and also Round Top Farm on Round Top Lane, both in Damariscotta. The expanded building opened in January 2012 after a delay caused by a ledge uncovered during excavation. Congdon said volunteers played a major role, helping move boxes, furniture, and supplies during Christmas break so the school could reopen.
According to the school’s written history, Coastal Kids has served more than 2,300 preschoolers since 1995 and is licensed for 78 children, with about one-third of its population receiving developmental therapy services, including speech, occupational, and physical therapies.
Congdon also said one of her long-term goals was to earn accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which she called the “gold standard” for quality programming. The school later achieved that credential in 2017 after an intensive review process.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children, based in Washington, D.C., looks at a school’s curriculum, means to access a child’s progress, safety, sanitation, the physical environment of the school, and the relationships the school has developed with families in the community to assess eligibility for the accreditation.
Sophia Mallay paints a fence board during Coastal Kids Preschools 30th birthday celebration on Saturday, April 4. The painted fence boards will be a part of an art installation at the preschool to honor the graduating classes, said Executive Director Jenn Caron. (Christina Brown photo)
Reaching that standard helps ensure the program maintains its quality even as leadership changes over time, according to Congdon.
“It’s something I was really committed to, something that will outlast me,” Congdon said. “I feel like the program can still carry that mark of quality even when I’m not here.”
For Congdon, one of the most rewarding parts of founding Coastal Kids has been watching children return to the school years later, often as parents, staff members, or community members with their own connections to the program.
She said the school is “a small community” and described it as especially meaningful when former students come back after years away. Congdon recalled one girl who attended Coastal Kids, later returned as a high school student hoping to help in the summers, and eventually went on to become an occupational therapist.
Congdon said she remembered the student saying how much the school had done for her brother, and that the student wanted to work with children because of what the school had meant to her family.
Congdon said she now sees that kind of continuity often, including children of former students and even parents she taught decades ago.
“It’s really rewarding, because I get to see them come back after many years,” Congdon said.
In 2023, the Coastal Kids Preschool building was named the “Priscilla G. Congdon Building,” with a celebration in honor of Congdon’s legacy and work she contributed to the preschool.
Caron said she plans on continuing the legacy of the preschool for as long as she possibly can now that she holds the executive director position.
“I will do whatever I can to keep it going for as long as I can,” Caron said. “I think the future of Coastal Kids is just being open to whatever comes our way.”
For more information, call Coastal Kids Preschool at 563-5335 or go to coastalkidsme.org.
