BROOMFIELD, Colo. — Pipe bursts can be messy and expensive.
For Bal Swan Children’s Center in Broomfield, a pipe burst costs them thousands of dollars worth of damaged books. They are just one of several properties dealing with the cleanup after the Front Range thawed out following last weekend’s freeze.
“The pipe just burst, and it was like a waterfall,” explained Debbie Kunz, executive director of Bal Swan, where the burst happened in an area of the gym the early childhood center uses as a library. Nearly 1,300 books were destroyed, primarily the “board books” with thicker pages often designed for toddlers.
“You’re talking $10,000-$15,000 just in books,” she said. “Early childhood is work that’s such mission-driven work. And there’s no margin. You have enough money to pay your teachers, you don’t have enough money for a crisis.”
Bal Swan, which serves about 180 children – about a third of them with disabilities – was closed Wednesday for cleanup and repairs. They reopened for school on Thursday. And no sooner had school leaders posted about the problem on social media the donations started to arrive.
“We very humbly ask people to help and they do,” Kunz said. “People care. And sometimes we think we live in a world where people don’t care and that’s just not true.”
Some donors are part of the school community and others are strangers. Kunz said people began dropping off books at the school Thursday morning, or offering to donate money to purchase new books. She said the school would gladly accept used books if a family is looking to clear out their home libraries.
“We’re full of gratitude because it could’ve been so much worse,” she said. We're grateful we were here [when it happened], we’re grateful we have an amazing community of support. And we have insurance and we will survive.”
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