Indiana—On a summer evening in late June, the Lafayette Seventh-day Adventist Church family celebrated the dedication of new playground equipment for the daycare center and Pleasantview Christian Elementary School. Throstur Thordarson, former pastor of the Lafayette Church, gave a presentation and shared some of the history and stated how much the church and school appreciated the McAllister Foundation grant to help continue the school's goal of excellence. With this grant, Pleasantview School was able to obtain enough playground equipment to increase the the playground's capacity to accommodate 60 children.

With grateful hearts, Michele McCaw, school principal, and Ginny Harmon, daycare director, cut the ribbon to complete the dedication of the playground equipment.

McCaw works tirelessly each day as principal to improve the school and provide quality education for its students. She also tries to make school fun for the children. Two years ago the school and PreK had a total of 17 enrolled. This year there are 26. Each year the number grows.

The daycare center was started as a part of a community outreach program. It also provides potential students for the PreK program. Through Harmon's efforts as director, the daycare is now one of the top daycare programs in Indiana and provides an excellent preschool program.

Because these two educators wanted to provide a first class facility for their students and children at the church also, they looked for ways to raise funds for a quality playground. They both submitted a grant request to McAllister Foundation, and the grant was approved. The combination of available funds and church members' help has resulted in a quality playground.

The Nas-Trike Raceway is part of the daycare playground area. The current trend is to make a concrete tricycle riding area where 20 laps makes a mile. This enables the youngest daycare children to form healthy exercise habits early in life.

Rebecca Pfeifle, Lafayette Church communication secretary