Our preschool was born from an initiative of volunteer parents for whom giving children a French education was a priority.

After an open house event at Rose-des-Vents elementary school in February 2002, a dream was born to some day house a preschool inside the French school building. Nobody could have thought that a few short months later, a group of motivated parents would have risen to the challenge.

Seeing how great the demand was for a French preschool on the West side of Vancouver, as well as for before- and after-school care at Rose-des-Vents school, two groups of parents joined their efforts to create those two services.

Their work started in March 2002 with the foundation of Association des parents de V’là l’Bon Vent, a non-profit organization incorporated in May 2002

Determined to bring their projects to fruition, members of the Association invested considerable effort in order to get everything in place for September 2002: they secured financing, organized equipment donations, fundraised, applied for various permits to the City of Vancouver, renovated the premises, promoted the new services, recruited employees, registered families and submitted all required documentation to the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board in order to receive the necessary accreditation. There was a lot to do and little time to do it.

After a real race against the clock, the before- and after-school care service was launched on the first day of class of September 2002, while the preschool opened its doors on October 21 of the same year.

The number of registered children rose steadily thereafter for both programs. Given the different client base and needs of the two services, they parted ways in September 2003 and have been managed separately from that point on.

Since September 2004, the preschool has been running with full registration for two programs involving 20 children. That success will, hopefully, inspire other groups of parents to realize their dream!

Our heartfelt thanks to the founding members for their perseverance: Lucie Gingras, Anne-Marie Lapointe, Anne-Marie Lascelles, Michelle Marsan, Kathryn Pedersen, Louise Plante, Ginette St-Arnaud and Roxanne Vachon.