A grant awarded Rainbow Experience Preschool last week is a step toward big changes for the 51-year-old Baldwin City nonprofit.

Jamie Davis, chairperson of the Rainbow Experience Preschool Board of Directors, said Rainbow received a $15,000 grant from the LiveWell Lawrence Coalition at a Friday banquet that is to be used to help pay for new playground equipment, which she said would be placed to the west of the preschool at the northwest corner of Sixth and Baker streets.

The grant went a long way toward paying for the playground equipment, but more is needed. Davis said last summer she priced the equipment and its equipment at $26,000, but thought Rainbow could reduce that if parents helped install the equipment.

The LiveWell grant through the Douglas County Community Foundation was meant to increase fitness and healthy living, Davis said. The grants were also awarded for items that would make fundamental changes, she said.

The Rainbow grant easily qualified on that score because it hasn’t had playground equipment since in moved in January from the basement of the old middle school on Chapel Street to its current location. Once the equipment is in place, the preschool can make an even greater change.

“The Kansas Department of Health and Environment doesn’t require us to have playground equipment because we are not an all-day preschool,” Davis said. “We are looking next school year to go to a full-time preschool. It would not be toddlers or babies. We would still be an educational program.

“I do think there is a need in the community for an all-day program.”

The board also would like to purchase its current site from Lighthouse Baptist Church to give the preschool more security, Davis said.?”We’ve never had a permanent home,” she said. “We were in the (Baldwin First) United Methodist Church for years and then in the basement of the old middle school before the district sold it last year. To do all we’d like to do, we’d like to have a permanent home.”

With that in mind, Rainbow has a fundraising goal of $50,000 to complete the purchase and installation of the playground equipment and make a down payment on the building, Davis said.

The board is considering what fundraisers it can have to help reach that goal, Davis said. Meanwhile, she said those with an interest in donating money could call the preschool at 785-594-2223 or call her at 785-806-5400.