The Asilo Donnini was created and run by the Nuns of the Suore Giuseppine di Chambéry order but in July of last year (article here) after a century of a presence here in the city the Convent was shut and the remaining nuns returned to Casaletto in Rome.
The end of an era.
Since then it the Asilo has been run on a private basis but the economics are getting very difficult to sustain as the school has break even point at 15 children attending daily.
At one point this year there were only 12 and the sums do not add up.
As you can hear in the interview (in Italiano) with the teacher Katia Cassettari, unless something very drastic changes in the next couple of months, the school will have to close its doors permanently at the end of this year.
Is there a knight in shining armour or another organisation out there that would be willing to keep this institution alive ?
Katia believes it could be possible but time is gradually running out.
Some observers have already commented on the fact that over the past few years they have seen the Post Office being moved out of Barga Vecchia which brought in people on a daily basis and now it looks as though the daily movement of parents and grandparents bringing their small children into and out of the city each day could also come to an end …. not really a good sign on the overall health of the city.