Tomorrow’s Pride Early Learning Center has called Tabernacle Road in New Hope home for 22 years, and, for the most part, it’s all been positive.
But in the last year, the preschool has been broken into once and, in the past month, it has been vandalized twice. Owner Valerie Sheffield doesn’t know why her school is targeted in these late night attacks — she hopes it’s just bored teenagers.
“I think it’s children who are unsupervised,” Sheffield said. “I think it’s just bored kids, at least I hope it is.”
On March 11, Sheffield awoke to find the white antebellum home with orange shutters and bright flower boxes where she is licensed to care for 83 children had been vandalized. In white spray paint, someone wrote “Thug Lyf3.” This past Saturday, she awoke to a racist message on the school’s main sign, written in the same white spray paint.
Luckily, Sheffield has friends in the right occupation.
“Fortunately, I have some awesome neighbors from Hydrovac,” Sheffield said.
Marc Graves lives near Tomorrow’s Pride and works for Hydrovac, an industrial cleaning company. He noticed the graffiti, and knew the message had to be removed before the kids came back. He tried to wash it off himself, but when elbow grease failed he called his boss.
“When he called me, he said, ‘I just want to get this cleaned up before the kids get there Monday,'” said Hydrovac manager Brodie West.
West agreed they should use one of the company power washers to clean the preschool’s sign free of charge. It was cleared up by Saturday afternoon.
Sheffield said local law enforcement, many of whom have left their children in her care over the years, have been responsive and protective of the preschool. She hopes the incidents will stop, but takes solace in the help she received from her neighbors.
“The sun always shines more than it rains, and we’ve got a lot of good people out here,” Sheffield said.
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