Last week, staff at an Anacostia day care center safely evacuated all 16 infants and children just minutes before a gas explosion destroyed the building next door and seriously damaged the day care.

Now, the director is raising money to help the center continue off-site. The fundraiser on GoFundMe has gotten $18,456 from 259 donations and counting as of press time. Director Regina Snead is aiming to raise $250,000.

Baby Einstein Child Development Center, located at 1225 Marion Barry Ave SE, was seriously damaged Thursday morning after a vehicle struck a gas line outside a convenience store, which was in the building that collapsed. The day care workers smelled the resulting gas leak and immediately evacuated the building with all 16 infants and children. None of them were physically injured.

“Everybody just jumped into line,” she says. “I’m glad they did.”

Snead says the children do fire drills every month and so they knew what to do.

“Our children are used to it. This was why they were able to understand when it was time to evacuate. They knew to grab their coats if they were old enough,” Snead says.

Within six minutes of the kids and staff exiting the building, the explosion took down the building next door. (Snead says while it was previously reported that it was within 15 minutes, video footage she recently viewed showed that the explosion happened much sooner). Only one person outside the building had minor injuries.

Snead says they’re planning to return to the space when repairs are complete, estimated to take four to six months. The center has been at its location at 1225 Marion Barry Ave SE for a little over 10 years.

“We’re comfortable there. We service that community. They know it very well,” Snead tells DCist/WAMU. “We have a lot of repeat parents and we want to make sure to continue to provide them high-quality childcare.”

Snead says she’s looking to relocate the center, which is currently closed, to a temporary location within the week. Money raised from the GoFundMe will be used to pay rent for the new space, purchase supplies, and for teachers’ salaries – which she says would help them keep the teachers they have.

While some of the temporary sites that Snead is looking into are also in the Anacostia neighborhood, none of them are within walking distance of the center’s original location. Parents tend to walk to the center, but likely won’t be able to do so while repairs continue. Snead is hoping to secure funding so that parents and children can use public transportation to get to the new location.

Snead says she wishes D.C. officials and agency leaders had responded a little sooner to help with relocating and recovery, but that “they understand the urgency now and I think they’ll follow through with the support we need.”

Childcare is expensive in D.C. Sending an infant or toddler to a child care center in D.C. costs $24,400 on average annually, according to a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation last year, on par with some of the most expensive cities in the country. For parents in the community, the Baby Einstein Development Center was a more affordable and geographically accessible option in one of the city’s lowest income wards.

“These families cannot afford to be without childcare,” the GoFundMe page reads. “They have to go to work. Being able to take leave, or miss work and maintain employment, especially over an extended time period is not an option.”