General Info

In 1990 The Orchard School and Community Center was founded by three friends, Eleanor Elbers, Kathy Torrey, and Kathleen Vetter, who shared a vision of a community place for gathering, growing and learning. They joined resources and work, and held preschool classes in a converted apartment above a woodworking shop and in the home of one of the teachers for three years. The demand for diverse needs childcare made it clear that the community needed the school, and the school needed its own home to have space for the increasing numbers of students wanting to partake in the school's offerings.