David and Jill GilmourA LEGACY OF LOVE

REPRINTED FROM PALM BEACH ILLUSTRATED.

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A LegAcy of LoveDavid and Jill Gilmour’s investment in early childhood educa-

tion is more than a passion project. It’s a bona fide solution.By Daphne Nikolopoulos and Lola Thélin

Photography by Michael Price

PALMBEACHILLUSTRATED.COM | DECEMBER 2018 PALM BEACH ILLUSTRATED

OOn a weekday afternoon, David Gilmour strolls the halls of Opportunity, a preschool for underserved children in West Palm Beach’s Westgate neighborhood. The students recog-nize him—he’s been here before—and wave and giggle. Escorted by a teacher, one boy comes to shake his hand and say, “Thank you.”

The child has no idea Gilmour is a Canadian entrepreneur who’s founded such companies as Fiji Water and Barrick Gold, has owned a pri-vate island—Wakaya—in Fiji, has traveled mil-lions of miles around the globe, and remains actively engaged in business concerns Wakaya Perfection and Zinio. He and his schoolmates know only that Gilmour is the force behind

Opportunity’s brand-new facility with fun playgrounds for all ages, an enormous sports field, and so much to learn and do.

Since 1939, when it was founded by the women of the Episcopal Church Guild of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, Opportunity Early Child-hood Education & Family Center (originally Opportunity Inc.) has provided preschool ser-vices to children whose families couldn’t afford it. It’s been a boon to inner-city communities,

but space has been an issue: The tiny facility can accommodate fewer than 100 children, result-ing in a waiting list of more than 500.

Enter David and Jill Gilmour. The Palm Beachers have quietly financed nine pre-schools worldwide, including in Fiji, the Ba-hamas, San Diego, and Las Vegas. The impetus for putting their resources into early childhood education was a tragic event. In 1983, Gilm-our’s only child, Erin, was murdered in Toron-to. “When we lost Erin by violence, that was the watershed of my life,” he says. “She was 22 and an extraordinary individual. I wanted to know: What makes killing so prevalent? Every sign led clearly to early education.”

Erin was the first to alert her father to the problems stem-ming from a lack of early learn-ing. On a trip to the Bahamas two weeks before her death, she discovered that in the out islands blind children were denied education. Spurred by Erin’s passion for helping those young victims of neglect, the Gilmours built a school for blind children in Nassau. “I was inspired by our daughter,” says Gilmour, 87. “I wish I could say I had the inspiration without the horror.”

Though they’d been funding preschools for years, it never occurred to Gilmour that similar problems lurked near beautiful, mani-cured Palm Beach. When it was brought to his attention that gangs and crime were rampant in certain areas of Palm Beach County, he decided to go all in on a project that not only would reflect his devotion to early childhood education but would also be a prototype for early learning centers nationwide.

“I fear for the security of West Palm Beach, which already has a major problem with crime and drugs, but also for an increase of crime on the island that can only escalate unless early education can turn the tide,” Gilmour says.

The Town of Palm Beach United Way intro-duced the Gilmours to Opportunity and the nonprofit’s executive director, Ali Eger, who was looking to expand and offer school-readiness training, health and nutrition, social develop-ment, and arts programs to more children. As far as matches go, this one was made in heaven.

“This was a little school making a big dif-ference,” Gilmour says. “I had total faith this headmistress could run a preschool three times that size. That’s when we decided to buy three acres across the road and build the ulti-mate preschool in the country.”

The Gilmours made the lead gift—$2 million—in the $8.6 million campaign and enlisted their friends, including Bob and Christine Stiller, who gave an additional $1 million. Gilmour’s best friend of 30 years, Herbert H. Jacobi, who serves on the board

of Palm Beach Civic Association, donated the funds to commission British artist Edwina Sandys to create a monumental sculpture, ti-tled Paradise Regained. The piece will be dis-played near the entrance and unveiled during the center’s grand opening event on January 31, 2019. “It is a work of abstract art,” says Ja-cobi. “It shows children together, looking up to, perhaps, a better world.”

Before long, the dream took shape: a 24,000-square-foot facility serving 285 chil-dren and scores of families. The sign above

the front door reads: Erin H. Gilmour Early Learning Center. It’s one of only two Gilmour-funded preschools to bear Erin’s name.

According to Eger, this facility is a game changer. “Early childhood education is our primary focus, but there are more enrich-ments we wanted to add,” she says. “The bo-nus of this [new] facility is that we will add family support that really rounds out the pic-ture. If we can strengthen their home environ-ment, our work with the children will be that much more effective.”

“Having just one child in an early learning center elevates

the whole family’s esteem.”—Jill Gilmour

David and Jill Gilmour with Opportunity students

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H“Having just one child in an early learning center like Opportunity elevates the whole family’s es-teem,” says Jill Gilmour. “They do not feel mired in their socioeconomic group. A child who is getting an education will be unlikely to be tempted to join a gang or resort to violence, thus reducing the over-all crime rate of their area over time. This is exactly what has happened in the area of Vista, California, where we established our first pre-K in the U.S.”

The Erin H. Gilmour center features 16 class-rooms, each utilizing assessment tools to support high-quality student-teacher interactions. Part of Op-portunity’s success is linked to its focus on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts/creativ-ity, and mathematics), critical thinking, and learning how to learn. Teachers implement the conscious dis-cipline technique to build character, emotional well-ness, and good citizenship.

The center also offers families access to a re-source center, an on-staff social worker, a scholar-ship fund, an emergency food and clothing pantry, family therapy and education, a full-time nurse, and the county’s first Ben Carson Reading Room in a preschool. In addition, Opportunity will provide after-care for its graduates and students’ siblings.

“With this expansion, we can increase services for the children, who come with a lot of other risks, such as food insecurities,” says Eger. “We can expand our family-development program, help parents con-tinue their education, and prepare for job search-ing. We can get back to our original roots of helping low-income families become self-sufficient.”

The Gilmours’ gift and, more importantly, vision allowed for the land purchase, furnishing, security technology, and all supplies and equipment for the new facility, but with an operating budget of $3.5 million a year, an endowment is needed to ensure Opportunity’s success in perpetuity. The Gilmours have responded with another substantial gift, on top of their initial investment, which will be announced at the opening event.

“It’s the least I can do for the wonderful life I’ve been able to lead,” says Gilmour.

It’s also the best possible tribute to his daughter in that it is more than a passion project honoring a loved one’s memory. It is a powerful solution to a real problem.

“The human brain is 85 [to 90] percent formed between six weeks and five years,” he notes. “If a child, at age 5 or 6, has not had early mental train-ing and also lives in a fairly dysfunctional environ-ment, it could lead to involvement with gangs. They take children who have been ignored, start them off as runners, then train them to steal and [commit] other crimes.”

Early childhood education has been proven to work. From 1962 to 1968, HighScope Educational Research Foundation examined the lives of 123 children born in poverty and at high-risk of failing in school. The children were divided into two groups: Group A entered a top-quality preschool program based on HighScope’s participatory-learning ap-proach. Group B received no preschool program. In the early 2000s, HighScope interviewed 97 per-cent of the participants at age 40. The study found that the adults who attended preschool had higher earnings, committed fewer crimes, and were more likely to graduate from school and hold a job.

Similarly, the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) followed the progress of 989 children enrolled in 24 preschools in low-income areas with access to extensive resources provided by CPC. The study showed an economic incentive for investing in high-quality childhood intervention. For the 1,000 who enrolled in the CPC program between 1983 and 1986, $26 million was generated. In economic rewards, for every dollar invested in a child, approx-imately $7 was returned to society.

“This is a rethink of David’s legacy,” says Jacobi. “He thought this was a wonderful way to counteract local gangs. This is an alternative to [crime]. It’s an environment that fosters learning and values.”

“This could be the bomb that ignites [a solution],” Gilmour says. Even now, well into his eighth de-cade, the serial entrepreneur and philanthropist can’t stop dreaming big. His next goal is to expand the concept within Palm Beach County and pres-ent his prototype to decision makers in Washing-ton, D.C. in order to encourage the government to place more emphasis on early childhood education. “[Erin] would be so involved with us on this,” he says. Jill adds, “This is the best way to remember this exceptional young woman and turn a tragedy into a positive outcome.” «

Gilmour’s next goal is to expand the concept within Palm Beach County

and present his prototype to decision makers in Washington, D.C.

The Erin H. Gilmour Early Learning Center is a tribute to Gilmour’s late

daughter, but it also presents a clear solution to the crime and gang

problems plaguing communities.

Opportunity Early Childhood Education & Family Center1713 Quail Drive • West Palm Beach, FL 33409 • 561.712.9221