Last night we held the open house for our Alef Bet Preschool for September 2027.
So many parents came, there was standing room only! Thank G-d, the demand is high, and unfortunately we will have to turn people away due to lack of space.
But looking around the room, I couldn’t stop thinking about how far we’ve come.
We opened the preschool in 2008. Within a few years, we were bursting at the seams and began the hunt for a new location.
It took a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy: Finding the right space, negotiating the lease, renovating it into a beautiful preschool, obtaining all the relevant certificates and paperwork, and so much more. It was a years-long undertaking.
In February 2020, we moved into the stunning new space that would allow us to double our enrollment.
Six weeks later, COVID hit, and the whole world shut down.
March. April. May. June. July. August. And finally, September. We didn’t know what to do. We had been prepared to double our enrollment, and now we didn’t know if we had a future at all.
Remember those days? Everybody was moving out of the city in droves. To the suburbs, to Florida, to anywhere! Everybody was predicting the end of Manhattan.
We had to make a decision: Close the school for good or keep going?
But we are shluchim, emissaries of the Rebbe, and the Rebbe's emissaries do not give up!
So we made a pivotal and risky decision: we would reopen, no matter what.
And how many parents signed up? One.
We reassured them, “Don't worry. Of course there's a class!” and we reopened the school with one family.
That year was not easy. Getting kids was hard. Keeping up with the constantly changing occupancy and mask mandates was a full-time job. But thank G-d, within a year, the school was full again.
And now here we are, just a few years later, with standing-room-only at our open house, forced to turn people away.
So, what’s the message?
Back then, everyone was making predictions, but nobody actually knew what would happen. We couldn't control COVID and we couldn't control whether families would come back to Manhattan. But we could control one thing: whether or not our doors were open.
And that remains true. We have to do our part. Show up, open the doors, be present and available, ready for anyone who wishes to walk through.
The rest is up to Hashem.