Good morning Drew, Betsy, Jeff, Cecelia and Jennifer (sorry for the group email)
The reason I am writing to you is that it is important to me (and the community) that we secure a long-term future for the co-op nursery school, and to do that, they need a long-term lease extension on their current terms. The Co-op is a nonprofit, parent-run organization, and if the city withdraws the support the city has provided to the Co-op for the last 70 years in the form of a $1/year lease, the co-op will not survive. I’m here to ask you to continue to support this institution of the community.
My oldest son was at the Coop with Dylan Taylor, Kristy and Mike’s dear son, who was killed on May 7th riding to work on his bike. Dylan and my son were at the co-op together 25 years ago. I also worked with Dylan as an adult in the MPCSD school district for a number of years, working in special ed. Dylan was all about community, he worked with compassion and helped all students, whatever their disability, feel like they belonged. He lived and breathed community, and the foundation of that ethic came from the co-op. The co-op literally saved me as a young mother of 3 boys who suffered with postpartum depression.
I became aware of the renewal of the lease issue after talking with other coop families at his memorial, I was so shocked, there is no Menlo Park without the Co-op. The Co-op is more than a preschool, it’s a Village that has created a community for families that becomes a lifeline for those who need support and community. It was so evident at the memorial that the preschool is currently providing so much support for the Taylor family, in the same way that the coop family has provided support to new families so many years. Even now my adult kids love to drive past the coop and tell everyone that thats where they went to preschool. The families stay bonded for a lifetime. The community needs this now more than ever, in a time when so many other things in the world are up in the air.
Please do what you can to have influence on whatever it takes to renew the pre-school lease at the Co-op at the requested rate and length, so that the school can continue to run on the community based, non-profit, affordable model that it currently does. Let’s not turn it into some exclusive, expensive, and non-affordable school that takes away access for families who need it the most. Do this for Dylan, and the Taylor family, they are the epitome of the community that Menlo Park strives to be. Please take this weight of Kristy’s shoulders so she can focus on mourning the heartbreaking loss of her beloved son.
Thank you for listening.
Christina Holmes
