Our Mission

The Neighborhood’s Mission:

Our mission is to provide quality, valuable community service for children ages 3-12 who live in surrounding communities.  This is a safe, flexible, and affordable center where an atmosphere is encouraged allowing children to feel free to be themselves! This is accomplished by the creative ways children are encouraged to become active participants in their programming.  Children have an opportunity to participate in physical, social, and creative skill-building activities that they may not receive otherwise.   

Neighborhood Goals

The Neighborhood’s goal is to foster a smooth transition from a very structured day at school, to an afternoon of exciting, fun activities with friends in a safe, semi-structured environment.  Enrichments such as sports, crafts, STEAM activities, etc., are available to meet the center’s goals.  Outside play and snack time are also important parts of the day.  The community is encouraged to become active participants as well.  Enrichments by community businesses and/or services occasionally visit the center to share unique skills, talents, or collections, which the children are often asked to participate in with a hands-on approach.

QUALITY 4ME – Quality for ME (Quality Rating and Improvement System – QRIS) is a four-step program designed to increase awareness of the basic standards of early care and education, to recognize and support caregivers who are providing care above and beyond those standards, and to educate the community of the benefits of higher quality care.  Quality for ME has three goals.

• To recognize childcare programs that provide quality care
• To encourage providers to increase their level of quality
• To provide parents with identifiable standards of quality

The Neighborhood prides itself on being a volunteer member of the State of Maine Quality Rating and Improvement System.  The rating is a Level 1-4 scale with 4 being the highest.  The program is currently a level 3 and is constantly developing new training and working on continuous quality improvements and standards to keep to the highest quality level possible.