If you have driven down Buckley Avenue, past Howe Sound Secondary, over the last few years, you have likely wondered about the beehive of work going on at 38647 Buckley Ave to the 1957-era church building and the surrounding property.
Since 2021, the aging building and surrounding originally overgrown lot have gotten a new life in the form of Avant Life Squamish church, the ministry having been provided use of the location by the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC).
After extensive renovations on and off throughout COVID-19 restrictions, the church has also recently opened up Avant Life Early Learning Centre, which is licensed to offer early learning for children aged three to five.
While it is a faith-based school, children from all beliefs are welcome, said Alycia Walton, director of early learning at the centre.
Walton, along with Pastor Matt Giannakos, whose daughter attends the school, gave The Squamish Chief a tour of the new centre, and showed off the bright, modern building on Wednesday.
Both Walton and Giannakos live in Squamish themselves, moving here to start the church and learning centre.
This "campus" of Avant Life is the third, with the others in North Shore and Surrey.
With tons of natural light that bounces off bright white walls, it is hard to imagine that not long ago, the Squamish building boasted popcorn ceilings, green shag carpet and numerous small dark rooms that are the hallmarks of such 1950s buildings.
The centre, which currently has eight spots for littles, is licensed for 25.
It opened in June, and the centre is located in the basement, which is reached by walking through a locked gate into a playground where students were playing when The Squamish Chief arrived.
Play-based
There is a play-based philosophy behind the education, meaning educators encourage what the children are interested in, Walton said.
There are different learning areas for different types of developmental milestones.
One of the areas that was a full play kitchen has morphed into a play hospital, complete with a large hospital sign and stuffed "patients"—a duck was apparently nursed back to health in the time The Squamish Chief was visiting.
"That kind of thing that promotes their social-emotional play," said Walton. Of course, like most early learning schools, there are arts and crafts, outside time—rain or shine—and reading.
"We are staggering opening the positions because there's a process of hiring staff and making sure you've got the right educators and good educators because that's also a difficult thing in the early childhood field, is having good quality educators," said Walton, who has been an early childhood educator for about 20 years.
"It's one thing to open a centre. It's another thing to open a good quality learning centre, which is what we really want."
(Walton noted that the language to describe childcare has shifted from daycares and childcare centres to early learning centres in order to reflect the educational component both of what is done while children are in their care and the skills and education of the educators who work there.)
While the staff are fully trained early childhood educators, and welcome children from families with any belief system, they aren't shy about their faith, either.
"We believe that it is really important that families know that we are faith based. That is who we are, and we're not hiding it. We're not ashamed of it.," Walton said. There are families that love the fact that we are even though they don't necessarily believe themselves."
The changes to the site are not done yet, there are plans for a public coffee shop on the ground floor called Barrio, which means "neighbourhood" in Spanish.
"The early learning centre, coffee shop, church, that'd be the fullness of our expression," said Giannakos.
"The 'heart' behind that is that we're like the neighbourhood coffee shop that provides excellent coffee in a great space of hospitality for people to come in."
Giannakos added that they don't want to open the coffee shop until they are ready to be open full-time, so there isn't a set timeline for its unveiling yet, but stay tuned.
For more information or to register for Advant Life Early Learning Centre, go to its website.
'Squamish business beat' is a regular series that arose from feedback from locals who wanted to see more business-related news. With this beat, we cover new, independent business openings and closings, among other business-related topics, as our time and resources allow. To be considered for this series, please email [email protected].
