The Oak Park-River Forest Day Nursery is honoring Percy Julian sixth-grade teacher Nancy Guarino by awarding her this year’s Rocking Horse Award.
The Rocking Horse Award is an annual, 15-year tradition within The Day Nursery.
“It’s an award that we give to an individual or an organization that has been especially generous with their time, their money, their ideas, for a long period of time,” said Michelle Arnold, president of The Day Nursery’s director’s board. “It’s a recognition, volunteer recognition, almost.”
Guarino got her start working in the banking and securities industry, but made the switch to education 13 years ago.
“It’s a great age I work with,” she said. “They’re great, they’re interesting, they’re funny, they want to learn, they still want to, you know, do well, or they want to know that they’re doing well and everything’s just interesting to them.”
Guarino volunteers at The Day Nursery and has done so for about 20 years. Her friend, a former recipient of The Rocking Horse Award and advocate for The Day Nursery, Charlene Schwar, was the one to introduce her to the non-profit daycare. She said she fell in love with the communal work style – particularly how they include the parents of their kids.
“You want to know the kids’ parents, the parents want to know each other, so it’s networking. It’s just, it was just a wonderful way to get everybody involved,” she said.
Guarino has never been a teacher at The Day Nursery, because she is not certified in early childhood education, so she began her journey with them by joining as a member of their board. She was on the board for eight years, took some time off, and then came back to the board for another eight years – in accordance with the bylaws of The Day Nursery. She now works as the president of the grant committee at the daycare center.
She also volunteers at The Economy Shop, an organization The Day Nursery has partnered with for more than a century, and was last year’s recipient of The Rocking Horse Award. At the shop, Guarino works in the shoe room, where they sell shoes for a fraction of their original price and the leftovers become donations for various organizations around the state.
As a non-profit organization, The Day Nursery, founded in 1912, relies on volunteers to keep their mission afloat. Volunteers at The Day Nursery run their board, committees, event staff, administrative support and their in-classroom programs — extra help in the classrooms, such as reading times.
Arnold said Guarino has always been “super helpful” and her dedication to her volunteering for The Day Nursery and her endless support of their mission is what made her the clear recipient for this year’s Rocking Horse Award. She said Guarino’s honor was “long overdue.”
“She has that kind of motivated attitude that’s like, ‘nothing is impossible,’ and she’s always willing to roll up her sleeves and, you know, participate, and make it happen,” Arnold said.
Guarino said she finds immense joy in volunteering for these companies. She added that other than the staff at The Day Nursery, her favorite aspect of working there is the intimacy and dedication of the corporation.
“You know, just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference,” she said. “We can make a difference for those kids who are there.”
The Rocking Horse Award will be formally presented to Guarino during The Day Nursery’s “Corks and Conversations” fundraising event Feb. 29 at Trattoria 225, 225 Harrison St.