A fundraising campaign established in the wake of a fire at a barn being used as a preschool in Carrboro has raised more than $3,600 in four days.

Wildflower Learning Community officials started the GoFundMe campaign over the weekend to get the school “back up and running.”

The school had been using a barn on Old Fayetteville Road in Carrboro as space for the preschool during the 2017-2018 academic year. That barn burned down in a fire in the early morning hours last Wednesday, April 25.

Two goats and several chickens belonging to the school were killed in the fire.

In a blog post that officials said was intended to answer questions about the fire, school leadership wrote that the school’s “vision is way too big for one fire to burn out.”

The barn fire remains under investigation. The property is located in Carrboro’s extraterritorial jurisdiction and is a “bona fide farm,” which allows for some exemptions from regulatory guidelines in usage of the property at the local level. The Town of Carrboro also said in a release that the bona fide farm status means that code enforcement for the barn falls to Orange County and not the town.

School founder Shelley Welch wrote on the school’s website that a recent “surprise” visit by North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services officials did not result in any violations being found.

Marilyn Kille owns the property where the barn is located. She said that she would be “cooperating fully” as the investigation is ongoing.

Kille and Welch have been in a long-running dispute during the school’s time at the barn, Welch acknowledged in her post. The day before the barn burned, Kille and Welch were both convicted of crimes related to the property. Kille was found guilty of assault; Welch was convicted of trespassing.

As for the school’s next steps, Welch wrote that, “We are going to cry a lot, then, wipe our tears and get to work rebuilding our community and building our new shipping container school!”

The school has submitted a conditional use permit application with Carrboro to operate a new facility on Damascus Church Road, according to the town. That application is under review.

“The childcare and community that the children and families rely on is currently in flux,” the fundraising campaign reads. “We are working on finding a temporary home for our preschool until we move into our permanent new location this summer.”

The GoFundMe campaign has a goal of raising $10,000.

Photo via Town of Carrboro

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