Many of the kids who attend Les Trésors de Marie-Claire in Montreal’s West Island are too younger to know precisely who Marie-Claire Martin is and what she has finished for the neighborhood.
Martin’s journey started in 1980.
After the tragic and sudden lack of her husband, the younger mom of two was pressured to discover a technique to help her household. Her love and fervour for kids led her to open a house daycare.
“We mainly put collectively a bit flyer at dwelling and we drew it, went to a duplicate firm, photocopied a bunch of them and went door to door giving out flyers and we began a daycare,” mentioned Karine Martin, Marie-Claire Martin’s daughter.
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The daycare finally outgrew her dwelling and wanted its personal house.
Within the late ’80s, Les Amours de Marie-Claire in Montreal’s Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough was born with a twist on studying languages. It was a rarely-seen curriculum in daycare on the time: French within the mornings, English within the afternoons, with a powerful emphasis on arts.
Martin’s imaginative and prescient and enterprise savvy led her to an even bigger endeavour: establishing Les Trésors de Marie-Claire in Kirkland.
And later, a full-fledged faculty adopted down the road within the mid-’90s.
The Marie-Claire academy has grown right into a 450-student institution, educating college students from kindergarten to highschool with plans to quickly begin educating Grade 12.
Martin is believed to be the primary Black girl to begin a college in Quebec.
“I’ve received to go away a legacy,” Martin mentioned. “For the individuals of my era, individuals of color, individuals which are immigrants — that we are able to make it right here. It is a nice province to be right here, and we are able to make it if we wish.”
Martin is now 78 years of age and has determined it’s time to take a step again.
Her daughter is now the academy’s CEO. Martin additionally made the tough choice to promote the daycare in October 2024 however believes her legacy is much from over.
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