Mom’s Club to Hold Weekend Preschool Fair

The MOMS Club of Pasadena, a local chapter of the International MOMS Club, is presenting its sixth annual Pasadena Preschool Fair on Saturday, February 20, 2016, at the Pasadena Christian Preschool, 1515 N. Los Robles Avenue.

Priscilla Hernandez, President of the MOMS (Moms Offering Moms Support) Club and Chair of the Fair Committee, said the fair will serve as a free one-stop shop for parents of toddlers who will be entering preschool in the city. The fair will guide them about navigating through endless information sources regarding school facilities, personnel and educational philosophies.

“We really make it open to the family, but, specifically, it’s preschoolers – usually toddlers aged between three or four years old – before they go to Kindergarten, looking for preschools to make that great transition,” Hernandez says. “This is basically the 101 of what the different preschools are and what’s available in the Pasadena area.”

Over 40 different preschools throughout the San Gabriel Valley will be represented and will field representatives to respond to questions from parents, Hernandez said.

Schools will be giving out pamphlets about their services with all relevant admission and other information.

“The event itself is free,” Hernandez said. “For the packet that we put together, we ask for a $5 donation. However, that’s not a mandatory thing. And all the money that’s excess raised will go to charity.”

The packet will include a comprehensive booklet containing the list of participating schools and their locations, tuition information, school ratio and other information useful for the parents.

Hernandez said the MOMS Club, which is different from the Pasadena Mothers Club Family Learning Center, have been holding the annual fair to assist parents who were having difficulty getting their children into the right preschools because of the lack of information.

“Believe it or not, it’s pretty complex to get your child into preschool in Pasadena area,” she says. “Some schools take years of waiting on the waiting list. So when you’re pregnant,  you have to put [your unborn child] on the waiting list just because they’re so coveted. We try to make this information available to all parents out there.”

“I know for myself,” she remembers. “When we started looking at pre-schools, we realized we were kind of late. And we thought, ‘Wow!’ Who would have known this?’ If we had been more informed, more aggressive about looking around.”

Hernandez said about 14 sponsor tables will also be on site, and fun activities and games will be available to make this truly a family event.

Doors open at 10 a.m. and an informal program to acknowledge schools, sponsors and VIPs will be held at 11 a.m.

There will be a raffle draw at 12 noon and the program concludes at 1 p.m.

Sponsors include Pasadena Outlook, Dream Dinners, Pump and Splash, Reptacular, Cultural Care AuPair, Maggie Cabalar Realty, Suzuki Music, Swimming Success Sword Fencing Studio, Super Soccer Stars, Campus Kid, Hannah Grey, The Beauty of Nursing, New York Life Insurance Company, Big 5 and Taylor Insurance.

Other MOMS in the 2016 Pasadena Preschool Fair Committee include Kristine Guerrero, Kristen Diviney, Wendi Flannery and Lily Wu.

For more information, call (323) 719-0745 or visit www.momsclubpasadena.com.