Under the Oaks and Gan Malibu Preschool defy the flames — preserving generations of learning, love, and community
She stood in the warmly embracing, cheerful room whose walls have witnessed generations of Malibu’s wee wanes singing, dancing, listening to stories, and learning. Those walls also witnessed the Palisades Fire ravaging all around them, and how Under the Oaks Malibu Preschool miraculously survived the unrelenting conflagration.
She stood in the preschool, which her grandparents founded in 1965, a time when Malibu was much smaller, wheneveryone in the area knew one another, and when residents — some of the rugged individualists who built Malibu — supported one another in all aspects of life.
She stood valiantly, determined to reopen the smoke-damaged preschool on Las Flores Canyon Road in time for the children to attend classes this autumn.
Sunshine Armstrong is on a mission and declares that the preschool will once again offer its nursery, will host toddlers who learn while they toddle, and pre-kindergartners and kindergartners who learn some of life’s most important skills, and how to be good humans who are caring, joyous and supporting of one another.
Under the Oaks is known for offering classes within the nature that surrounds it. The children often learn under the hundreds-year-old oak trees and along the creek that runs past the school as it flows down to the ocean.
Some of those trees are severely singed. However, miraculously, they are still standing. “Today, an arborist told me that most of the trees will come back!” Armstrong joyously shares states, vowing that the entire school will also come back.
Such a close call
“After the evacuations and the main fire front blew through, Las Flores Canyon was a mess of power poles down and boulders littering the road,” shared Skylar Peak, one of the Malibu Brigade firefighters who helped in the fierce battle to save structures in East Malibu.
“Areas around the school kept burning and we kept water on the school as it was one of the few remaining buildings — we kept water on some hot spots and hand tools proved to be super effective to keep the smoldering wood chips and mulch from taking it down.”
Pausing to reflect, Peak added, “Honestly, we were quite shocked that the school was still there in the morning.”
The hauntingly close call doesn’t haunt Sunshine Armstrong however. Rather, it has stoked a determined fire in her being and she aims to carry on the school’s operations.
The preschool needs help to reopen
Armstrong knows that the school is blessed to be standing. Recently, Khenpo Karma Tenkyong, a Buddhist monk, blessed the school and the local nature that suffered in the fire. “Through this blessing of the tree, water and wind, we can bless all the animals, insects, the climate, human beings and our precious Mother Earth, recognizing the deep interdependence with all the living beings and nature,” Khenpo shared.
The school could use help from the community as Armstrong tries to replace the natural, organic toys and books in the classrooms that were fire-damaged and as she also ensures that the walls and floor coverings and the entire school isremediated so as to remove all toxins. Armstrong, buoyed by her internal resolve and dogged determination, even went so far as to take the requisite training to become an IICRC Certified Fire and Smoke Damage Remediator to lead the school’sremediation efforts so that she can save funds and manage to reopen the school.
When she’s not remediating the school, Armstrong is helping with the effort to carry on serving a small class of children who still need a preschool setting.
“I am so grateful for the help of Miss Lolli, who was the first teacher for my grandmother when the preschool opened, and for Anna, Lolli’s youngest daughter, as they are teaching a few of the children on Latigo Shore Drive until we can resume classes at Under the Oaks,” Armstrong said.
Readers who may wish to help Sunshine Armstrong reopen the preschool can reach out to her at sunshine@oakspreschool.com.
Gan Malibu celebrates 25 years of educating preschoolers
He stood on the stage, smiling at the large crowd of supporters gathered on a warm May evening at Rafi Lounge overlooking the sea. Those attending the event were joyous as they assembled to celebrate the success of Gan Malibu Preschool, which is in its 25th year of offering preschool and infant education to Malibuites.
They gathered to raise money to support the school’s many activities. However, they were also keenly aware that — just like the Under the Oaks Preschool — Gan Malibu, which is located above the Malibu Chabad across from the Malibu Pier — came perilously close to total devastation from another fire, the Franklin Fire, which scorched central Malibu in early December.
Like Armstrong, Rabbi Levi Cunin and Sarah Cunin, the director of Gan Malibu, are resolved that their preschool will continue to serve some of Malibu’s littlest wee ones and their families. Gan Malibu serves infants to preschoolers, and, like Under the Oaks Malibu Preschool, it exposes them to a world full of music, art and nature and its program strongly believes in fostering children’s natural curiosity to inspire learning.
“Tonight is a celebration of the 25-plus years of Gan Malibu, which started the way many great things do: There was a need in the community,” Rabbi Cunin said. “My wife, Sarah took the lead and she saw not just what was, but what could be, and with almost nothing in the bank and everything in her heart, she grew a place where children can learn kindness and share with a friend, knowing that then, the children can grow up and help save the world … and they have.”
As attendees whose children have attended Gan Malibu over the years nodded in agreement, Cunin stated, “This is not just a school — it’s a sanctuary, a space for values, life and love. We believe that if you give a child love, truth andpurpose, you plant the seeds for a better future.”
Les Steinmetz, a parent of two Gan Malibu alumni, shared, “You never forget this kind of stuff — the preschool didn’tpush the children in any way, but it helped my children to be happy and have imaginations and they loved all of the interacting with other children.”
As we Malibuites, who, like Armstrong, are exhausted, but determined to continue on and help to rebuild Malibu, it is heartening to pause to reflect and to realize that both preschools are still standing in Malibu despite each of them experiencing very close calls and barely avoiding obliteration in two recent fires. Malibu is better for still having them.
