FREE KINDERGARTENS

Evening Star, Issue 18255, 20 April 1923, Page 5

FREE KINDERGARTENS

THE ANNUAL REPORT. Tho annual report of the committee of tho Dunedin Free Kindergarten Association states: — For many 7 years there were only throe free kindergartens in Dunedin—one in Caversham (at present held in the Baptist Church Hall), the R. S. Reynolds Kindergarten in Macandrew road, and the KelseyYarall’a Kindergarten in the Pelichet Bay area. Last year a fourth kindergarten was opened at St. Kilda in the South Dunedin Presbyterian Church Hall, and this year a fifth has been commenced in Kaikorai in the Presbyterian Church Hall. The committee expressed its gratitude to tho above-mentioned Churches for the free use of their halls; also to First Church and the Otago Women’s Club for the use of rooms for committee meetings. Local sub-committees have been formed at St. Kilda and Kaikorai, and it is hoped that these, with assistance from the mothers’ clubs, will be able to raise sufficient money to pay working expenses. Miss Dutton is successfully continuing her work as trainer of students and supervisor of the kindergartens, the work of the students being very favorably commented upon last year by the principal examiner, Professor D. R. White, M.A. During the year the Kelsey-Yaralla Mothers’ Club held a bazaar to raise money for tho purchase of a piano. Tho proceeds of this and an entertainment given by the Hearthfire Girls amounted to £46 ss, and a very good second-hand instrument was bought, the mothers promising to raise the balance in 1923. The Caversham Mothers’ Club spent £25 on a piano, and placed the balance in tho savings bank as a nucleus of a building fund. Mrs T. K. Sidoy donated £5 towards the expenses of opening St. Kilda Kindergarten, and the local committee, with the Mothers’ Club, raised £lB 2s during the year, part of which has been spent on kindergarten chairs, etc. Money has been raised for the working expenses of the association by annual subscriptions, donations, a book shop, old clothes shops, a street flower sale, and by a bazaar, at which the mothers’ clubs of the various kindergartens assisted. The Girls’ High School donated five guineas from its entertainment, community singing £ll 8s Id, St. Kilda community singing £1 12s, and R. S. Reynolds’s folk dancing class handed in £3 to cover the expense of electric light and gas. The City Council has included £SO in the estimates for the financial year as a donation to tho funds of the association.