Sizzling Success: Grill-N-Gather event draws big crowd

Over 100 people gathered at the St Francis Solano Catholic Church in downtown Francesville to celebrate the progress on the community's first licensed childcare facility, Francesville's Caterpillar Corner. A Grill-N-Gather event was hosted by the Pulaski County Early Learning Network (PCELN), a program of the Community Foundation of Pulaski County, on Friday, April 4 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. The event celebrated the building inching closer to transforming into an affordable, high-quality, childcare center. A dollar-for-dollar match was made possible by the GIFT VIII Initiative for contributions made to complete the project. Francesville's Caterpillar Corner will address the unmet childcare need in the community while supplementing – and not replacing – the trusted childcare providers already in the area. Comments were heard from several guest speakers, including Founder and Executive Director of the Ladybug Foundation Logan Wuethrich, Medaryville Nursery School Lead Teacher Katie Stowers, President of the Uptown Project Morgan Federer, Pulaski County Early Learning Network Coordinator Stacia Conrad and childcare providers Sharon Mosher and Mikayla Bass.