Growing up, my mom told us how hard it was to find good childcare in Anchorage in the 1970s. And the 1980s. And the 1990s. She told us, “When the doctor confirmed you were pregnant, the first person you called was your husband. The second person was Mrs. Mounts, the director of Hillcrest.” I was the third person in my family to be a Hillcrest Kid in 1983 (I still have my button!), and in 2017 I followed mom’s advice when we started our family. The first person I told was my husband. My second call was to Christina Eubanks-Ohana, and Henry started Hillcrest in May of 2018.
50 years after my mom had difficulty finding good childcare in Anchorage, that task is still nearly impossible. Parents are left with few choices and finding something that’s “good enough” will have to do. But tucked away on a hill is an enclave of love, support, encouragement, resilience, and community, teaching those humane fundamentals to the thousands of kids who have walked through its doors.
Hillcrest isn’t “good enough”. Hillcrest is great. In Anchorage, Hillcrest is the Gold Standard.
The teachers and staff at Hillcrest don’t just teach. They love. And they don’t just love the kids in their classroom, but the entire family. In the spring of 2020 when COVID-19 shut down our entire city and things were, at best, uncertain, Hillcrest remained open and managed to maintain continuity and routine in the lives of our kids. They opened their doors to kids in older grades as a place to still go to school when ASD moved to online learning. They provided then and continue now to provide what we all so desperately craved in those early and scary days of 2020: an extraordinary act of love.
Hillcrest has managed to weather literal and figurative storms for 50 years but cannot do it alone. This little brown building holds greatness within its walls but needs help to grow, improve, and honor its staff and teachers for their relentless pursuit of kindness, goodness, and, most of all, love.
This campaign provides for:
Please consider generously participating in Hillcrest’s Annual Giving Campaign.
- staff end-of-year bonuses
- improvements to the classrooms and building
- a building maintenance reserve fund
Thank you for your generosity. The next generation of Hillcrest kids will be so grateful for your own extraordinary act of love.
Thank you,
Catherine A. Sullivan
(Hillcrest alumnus, 1983)