July marks 70 years since Ōtaki Playcentre was established.

The playcentre is celebrating on Saturday, July 27, at the playcentre on Mill Road. There will be speeches from members over the decades since 1954, music and poetry, singing of the national playcentre waiata, displays, shared kai and reminiscing. Local Hira Royal was a founding member.

The parent-led centre has been described as a lifeline for parents, supporting many young families and surviving myriad changes. It has had to keep pace with reforms and regulations since government restructuring of early childhood education in 1989.  It also had to be self-funded in its earlier years, and largely run, voluntarily, by women.

The celebration is aimed at acknowledging the parents who kept the centre going financially before bulk government funding in 1993.  In the early years, centre whānau had to pack in and out of a shared facility before moving in 1975 to its current premises on Mill Road.

The first playcentre in New Zealand opened in the Wellington suburb of Karori in 1941. The Playcentre Federation was established in 1948 with the aim of providing “leisure for mothers and opportunities for the social development of the preschool child”. In 2019, the 32 playcentre associations in New Zealand merged with the federation to create a single charitable trust – Playcentre Aotearoa.