August 6, 2018 – West Bend, WI – A special blessing took place Sunday morning at the new Little Saints Early Learning Center at St. Frances Cabrini Parish. The former convent, 615 W. Hawthorn Drive, will now be home to the new care center for children ages 6 weeks to 3 years old.
“As we celebrate another use for this building made for our Notre Dame sisters who taught here, it is now a place for our youngest people to come,” said Rev. Nathan Reesman.
Aside from blessing the facility Rev. Reesman also blessed the new principal at St. Frances Cabrini William Waech, facilities director Missy Dieterich, and the rest of the staff.
“This is great for the parish and the community,” said Waech. “It just offers families that are working full time a place they can trust for their children.”
Rev. Reesman said the child care center had been in the vision of the parish for quite a while, however they didn’t have the space until now.
“After the Notre Dame sisters moved out of the convent the space was used as a Youth Formation Center,” Reesman said. “The timing was just opportune and the space became available and last fall we were given a generous donation to do something like this.”
Dieterich said the remodel at the convent included morphing the chapel into an infant and toddler room. “We pulled up the carpet and repainted it and moved the sacristy cabinet was moved to another room and repurposed as storage for the teachers,” she said.
Furniture and toys have been donated.
Dieterich said they can accept 36 children. Current enrollment is 29 with room for more.
St. Frances Cabrini will not count the Little Saints Learning Center into its school enrollment.
The K3 – 8th grade enrollment at St. Frances Cabrini School for the coming year is 255 students.
For more information on Little Saints Learning Center click HERE.
On a side note: A trip down memory lane for families with ties to St. Frances Cabrini as Ann Marie Craig penned a fabulous article on the school’s 60th anniversary celebration.
“The pat of Sister Jean’s hand on my cheek seemed to be a touch of the love that binds all of us together as the Cabrini family then and now. She said to me, “…we had a saying, ‘Cabrini, a good place to be.’ It really was.”
It really still is.”