W hen considering the economic plight of the area, our attention is usually drawn to large and dramatic events – the closing of Schrade and Hydro, the decline of the resorts, and the emptiness of once thriving downtowns. With this focus, we often lose sight of the struggles endured by much smaller groups…groups that depend on a level of community vitality that is clearly suffering at the moment. When a big organization leaves, it often takes many smaller ones with it.

Looking at the empty industrial sites on Route 209, one can point to globalization and the decline of American manufacturing as the cause of their disuse. Yet the reasons are not so clear when one sees a small nursery school struggling to survive. Started as co-operative, community run collective of like-minded parents, the Ellenville Cooperative Nursery School thrived for decades on the strength of its members' and teachers' passionate dedication. Recently, however, the school has reached a point where dedication alone may not be able to sustain it. Factors much larger than the day-to-day concerns of a small school have hit it hard, and despite the legacy of commitment, the school finds itself on the brink.

Good or bad, the American economy has been transformed into one that requires two wage-earners per household, making it much harder for a typical family to find the needed hours to participate in a cooperative. Consequently, what was once done with volunteer labor is now done with money, and the work of volunteers has primarily become fundraising.

Even more insidious than lack of time, the culture of America today seems all too ready to cede local, individual initiative to large bureaucratic organizations that make all the decisions for us. Is it better to have a $40 million a year school system introduce our 3-year-olds to education, or to leave it to Miss Sally and Grandma Gail? Would we rather buy all our food, clothes, and drugs from one, multi-billion dollar corporation, or from a variety of local moms and pops? It seems that many today would choose the former.

It is nearly impossible to compete with a "free" pre-school program, even one as good and affordable as the Ellenville Co-op Nursery. Of course, the "free" pre-school isn't free, and it's not even a full day. The program is paid for by all taxpayers in the district as part of a truly frightening annual tax bill. Don't be mistaken, we don't feel the Ellenville Central School District pre-school program is a bad thing. It is a good, well-run program, and getting kids some exposure to school before Kindergarten is hugely beneficial to the kids and schools alike. There is just something sad about the trend — another capitulation of our ability to run our own lives to a corporatized, unaccountable bureaucracy promising to run it all for us.

The Ellenville Co-op nursery is still here. It has been hit hard three times, with the change in family economics, a brutal economic downturn, and a free alternative to the school just a quarter-mile away. Weaker organizations would have folded long ago, but somehow the nursery school finds a way to pull out another year, year after year. In many ways, the challenges facing the nursery school mirror those facing the community at large, and we would like to think that the nursery school's strength is really a reflection of the strength of our community as a whole. If that is the case, then failure is simply not an option.

Full disclosure: The publishers of this newspaper have sent two children to the Ellenville Cooperative Nursery School, two children who absolutely loved the experience, and who are much better for it..

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