Keith says that my role as a board member and my time spent on getting this place open was like working a second, part-time job (with my first, full-time job being parenting). And he's right! It has been a lot more work than I imagined it would be. But it is a labor of love and I am happy to give up sleep and time away from my family to make this thing happen! (well, maybe not "happy" to give that up, just that I felt/feel really dedicated and since there were so few of us working to make this happen, I had to dig down deep to find the energy for this and, somehow, I did).
We (the GiGi's Playhouse Nashville Board of Members) were in lease negotiations for MONTHS with a location in Brentwood (Just south of Nashville, but still in Davidson County). Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Seriously, this was about a three month process. We voted in agreement to sign the lease and then it was still a little more than two weeks before that actually happened. For some reason we set a Grand Opening date before the lease was signed and by the time we actually signed the lease, we only had five weeks to get the space ready for our Grand Opening. And BOY did we need every single day of those five weeks!
The space was fairly well laid out, we just needed to put up a couple of walls that would turn one big room into two smaller tutoring rooms. But we had A LOT of work to do! The place was a gym before we moved in and it smelled and felt dirty. It needed new carpet and fresh paint and some serious cleaning from head to toe.
But here's the thing. We're a non-profit and we're just starting up and we really didn't have much in our budget to hire anyone to do the work. So, while we put out pleas for help/ volunteers, the dirty work mostly fell on our board members. We were able to get some building materials donated and we had a general contractor (a board member's husband) donate his time and carpentry skills. We had a team from Nissan come do most of the painting one day and the design firm that worked with us was able to get new carpet and some furniture donated to us!
I spent a lot of time up at the Playhouse working and working. I spent any free weekend time up there and when Keith would get home from work during the week, I would kiss him and the kids goodbye and I'd head up to work. The kids were even getting use to this. They would see me putting my shoes on and grabbing my keys and they'd run over and tell me bye.
Every time I'd go up there with a list of things that needed to get done, I would find 4 more things that needed to be done before I could leave. Usually because things needed to happen in a certain order. Like, the spackle needed to be done so someone could sand it the next day, or the spackle needed to be sanded so the painting team could paint the next day, or the first coat of paint needed to get done so that the second coat could go on, or the painting needed to be finished so the baseboards could go up, and so on. I spent many hours up there in the month of October. Most days, I wouldn't come home until 10:00-12:00, even 2:30am one Saturday night (I was not up there alone that night). Now, remember, I still had a four-month-old at home and she was (is) still waking around midnight-1:00am for a bottle. So, I would get home late, take a shower, THEN feed the baby, THEN go to bed. My usual bedtime during that month was somewhere between 2:00-3:00am. So, as you can see, I was just a *little* sleep deprived and I DEFINITELY didn't have time for this blog, which is why it was two months behind and I've been playing catch-up lately.
So, I worked and many of the board worked and Mr Ron worked and we had a couple of artists who worked and we all worked and worked and worked, and SOMEHOW we made it happen!
We had a little preview party for our board and volunteers and founding donors the night before our Grand Opening Celebration. It was really nice to be able to take it in and enjoy the space before the craziness of the next day. Kim, our Board President, took the time to thank all of the board members and key volunteers individually. A *few* tears were shed. Nancy Gianni (founder of GiGi's Playhouse) and her daughter, GiGi were there too. It was just a really nice night.
This is GiGi. ;)
The next day was the BIG day! The day we had all been waiting for and working toward. The day we cut the ribbon and invited our families and donors and local community to come see what GiGi's Playhouse is all about. We had a few short speeches from Kim, Nancy, the Mayor of Brentwood, the Director of the Down Syndrome Association on Middle Tennessee, myself (with a little help from Etta) and a couple of adult self-advocates with Down syndrome. Then we all squeezed in where we could and cut that ribbon (Thanks to my mom for making our ribbon. I just re-used one of the big bows as the topper to our Christmas Tree). It was really a great event and we were so happy with the way it turned out! (Here is a link to preview one of the videos. He hasn't made the video "public" yet because he may edit it some more. I will replace this link once he shares the public version. http://youtu.be/ujNYywBjqYg)
^^This^^ chalkboard was one of my favorite things at the end of that day! It was blank when the celebration began. *love*love*love*
3/4 of our Board
In the five-and-a-half weeks that GiGi's Playhouse Nashville has been open, the kids and I have been up there at least once or twice a week. They understand where we are going when I tell them we are going to "GiGi's" and Etta even exclaims, "GiGi's!" when we pull into the parking lot. They know where we are and they know it is a fun place to be. It makes my heart happy!
Thank you to everyone for being so supportive of me/us/GiGi's Playhouse as we work to get it off the ground. It will serve my family and other families with Ds in the Nashville community and I am so excited about the possibilities!
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