Light waves of misty rain fell intermittently around the secluded hilly grounds of a former East Napa Mormon church, landing upon lush green grass, a collection of tree stumps and the colorful waterproof gear of the dozen or so children playing upon them.

At first only one child, a boy in a navy blue rain jacket and matching pants, takes on the task of jumping from the top of a stump down to the grass. But he hesitates, stuck in a crouch, to lift off.

Preschool teacher Fatima Verdejo walks over and encourages him to imagine blasting off into the gray sky and beyond. With Verdejo’s encouragement, and a countdown, liftoff becomes easier. And a crowd of other children join in on the fun, rocketing off together.

While the 20,000-square-foot property at 15 Chapel Hill Drive long stood silent, with the church vacant since 2021, there’s recently been a transformation. Now one can hear the sounds of small children playing — bursts of excitement, imaginative declarations of blue Play-Doh being blueberry chocolate — at the new Le Petit Elephant Nursery and Preschool location that’s been open for about a month.

On Wednesday, Sept. 2, the school’s first rainy day at the new location, the exhilaration of the children playing, warm and water-protected in their rain gear, is palpable.

Le Petit Elephant founder Millie Pintacsi said the school’s outdoor-focused curriculum — which she said involves open-ended outdoor activities for at least five hours each day — would be rolling forward even if it were raining enough to create puddles. Indeed, that would mean more fun: the kids would go right to them for a jump and a splash, she said.

“Childhood is supposed to be messy, that’s the point,” Pintacsi said.

Pintacsi, who founded Le Petit in 2015, said she’s been dreaming about such a location since she was 17 years old. Le Petit’s journey to the new Alta Heights location — which Pintacsi owns, a rarity for childcare providers — from its former rented location at 2645 Laurel St. will ultimately allow the center to double its capacity, from 130 to 250.

For now there’s lots of room to grow. Pintacsi said she’s added six new children since the location opened up on Aug. 11 — after a rush to move from the former location, which closed on Aug. 6, and, Pintacsi said, set up the new location with help from community members including Napa County CEO Ryan Alsop. Several currently unused areas will be transformed into classrooms in the future, she said. An area envisioned for child-friendly events that includes a full basketball court and a stage is currently being used for storage.

Still, the center is up and running with classrooms for the various age groups — infants up to age 1, mobile infants ages 12 to 18 months, toddlers ages 18 to 36 months and the older transitional kindergarten and kindergarten-aged kids — and three separate outdoor play areas surrounding the building.

“Look at that, we weathered the storm,” Pintacsi said, as the rain faded away Wednesday. “Is that a metaphor?”

Rocky road to opening

While Le Petit Elephant’s new Alta Heights location is now open, the road there wasn’t by any means smooth.

Considerable neighborhood opposition to the project centered on concerns about potential traffic, parking, air quality and noise impacts, as well as fire evacuation and the potential for the event area to create impacts beyond the day care. But after approval by the city’s Planning Commission in April 2024 — and the subsequent denial of an appeal by the Napa City Council — that pushback materialized into a June 2024 lawsuit by the Alta Heights Neighborhood Coalition that blocked the expansion by alleging the city of Napa violated the California Environmental Quality Act by finding the project exempt from environmental review.

Neighbors agreed to drop the lawsuit in March 2025, settling with Le Petit on terms that included increasing enrollment gradually, limiting events to being child-focused and indoors-only, and requiring that Le Petit keep records of enrollment and events held, among other terms.

Pintacsi previously said the lawsuit caused the project to be delayed for more than a year and added hundreds of thousands of dollars in design and legal costs. The city of Napa and Napa County in 2025 both chipped in to push the project forward, with each approving $325,000 in loans adding to $1.2 million in federal grant support the county originally contributed in 2023 to expand child care services.

Napa County Supervisor Liz Alessio said she was thrilled to see Le Petit hang in there and open. But she noted the stark difficulties of finding childcare in Napa County continue — especially with the shuttering of childcare facilities like Hearts and Hands Preschool in Calistoga, which closed at the end of July after not being able to find a new location.

Alessio cited a 2023 report by Community Resources for Children Napa that found for every 10 infants born only one has access to a licensed childcare space.

And the cost of such spaces can be a huge burden on families — one reason Pintacsi said she’s consistently offered scholarships to families with lower incomes. A 2023 labor market analysis by the Workforce Alliance of the North Bay found Napa’s families paid a median price of $18,909 in child care costs in 2022, well above the average spent by families in counties of comparable size.

“If we want to retain our community of families, which I pray we do, every time we think about housing we need to connect it to childcare,” Alessio said.

Alessio noted that she’s pushed for changes including Senate Bill 299, authored by Sen. Chris Cabaldon, D-West Sacramento, which would limit people from challenging childcare centers in residential areas using the California Environmental Quality Act and prevent such the situation that happened with Le Petit from happening again. But she noted issues for childcare centers continue to arise, such as school districts in California adding universal transitional kindergarten, given that centers can depend on having kids around that age to subsidize the expansive cost of infant care.

Alessio added that support for childcare needs to come from all levels of government, and from the community itself, to make a difference.

“The city, county and community need to wrap our arms around and support infant and childcare facilities,” Alessio said. “We really do, for all the reasons: Health, safety, maintaining community and building community.”

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281.