30 Years of the Kleeblatt Daycare Center

After the anniversary celebration had to be postponed on one of the hottest days of the summer due to the heat, an autumn anniversary celebration was held with children and families at the Kleeblatt Inclusive After-School Care Center in Büchenbach.

The children had been looking forward to meeting the mayor all week and were already waiting at the door when he finally arrived. Susanne Herbst, the director of the after-school care center, warmly welcomed all the children and parents—and, of course, Mayor Jörg Volleth—as well as Kerstin Knörl, head of the Youth Welfare Office, along with the responsible staff members from City Hall. The custodian received a special welcome, as the Kleeblatt has the world’s best custodian. Cooperation within the city is also excellent, as the mayor emphasized in his speech.

In 1994, Mayor Dietmar Hahlweg laid the cornerstone for the facility, and in 1996, the Kleeblatt Children’s Center was officially inaugurated—a unique project featuring a combined sponsorship model as a key infrastructure facility in the growing neighborhood. The planning for the children’s center—which, in addition to the after-school care center, consists of the Montessori and Lebenshilfe kindergartens as well as the Apostelkirche daycare—can be traced back to then-Mayor Ursula Rechenbacher. The city of Erlangen was very innovative and invested in after-school care as early as the beginning of the 1990s—a decision from which the city continues to benefit to this day. Since its inception, the after-school care center has worked in close collaboration with the elementary schools in Büchenbach. Over the past 30 years, the center has been particularly distinguished by the diversity of its projects and conceptual developments. The range of inclusive spots was continually expanded, and thus the Kleeblatt after-school care center became the first inclusive facility within the Department of Child Day Care in regular institutions, alongside the city’s Inclusive Learning Rooms. Thanks to support from the Youth Welfare Office—ranging from the Family Counseling Center to neighborhood partnerships such as school social work and the West Youth Center, all the way to the specialized inclusive services—there has long been close collaboration for the benefit of the children and families.

Two staff members from the team have been there since the very beginning in 1996, and this particularly impressed the mayor. The children gave him a tour of their after-school care center and showed him the wall with their wishes, which ranged from “Always kebabs & hot dogs” to the garden swing—which is currently broken and, due to the city’s budget situation, will have to wait a long time to be replaced. Jörg Volleth expressed special thanks to Parents’ Council Chair Susann Urso and the entire Parents’ Council for their support of the team and the facility. As an anniversary gift, the parents’ council presented a birdhouse, on which the children were allowed to leave their fingerprints in paint—and the birdhouse will, of course, be installed in the garden with the help of the wonderful custodian! 30 years of the Kleeblatt After-School Care Center—it was a successful anniversary celebration for children and families—many glitter tattoos and finger and handprints in the guestbook will remain as memories of the celebration!