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The little yellow school on Tenth Street North has been through it all.

There was a hurricane that ripped off its roof in 2005, deeming the building a total loss.

It survived budget cuts, financial woes and thousands of children’s sticky fingers.

But come August, Fun Time Early Childhood Academy officials will say goodbye to the place they’ve called home for more than 45 years.

Construction on the school’s new $2.3 million building began recently, said Peter Manion, co-chairman of Fun Time’s board of directors.

On Friday, about 200 trucks delivered dirt to the site to raise its elevation.

The new 8,064-square-foot building, at 102 12th Street N., will be double the size of the current building, and will allow more families to use its services.

Fun Time has been providing child care for low-income families in Collier County for more than 45 years. The day care, located in Naples’ River Park neighborhood, provides child care for families at a reduced cost.

At least 20 percent of the 50 children who attend Fun Time are part of Head Start, and at least half of the families qualify for state-subsidized tuition.

Manion said school officials are hoping the building will be complete by Aug. 18, just in time for the new school year to begin.

“We’re optimistic we can hit that (mark),” Manion said. “It’s a very different building from a conventional building. With luck, and it takes a lot of luck and it takes good weather, we should be able to make it.”

Rather than building the new complex from the ground up, Fun Time’s new complex will be made of modular buildings. Those buildings, which are expected to be delivered later this summer, are pre-made so contractors won’t need to do a lot of work on them once they’re delivered.

“It’s not like a brick-and-mortar building,” Manion said. “They have everything in them already.”

If all goes as planned, students will start classes at the new school in August.

But Manion said the students aren’t nearly as excited as the teachers.

“The teachers are getting very excited,” he said. “The old facility is long past its life. It requires a lot, a lot of maintenance to keep it running.”

Major repairs were needed in October 2005 after Hurricane Wilma ripped off the roof. The building was declared a total loss, and school officials began the search for a new site to build the school.

Initial plans to build a 17,000-square-foot, two-story building at 102 12th St. N. fell through, but Naples City Council approved plans for a scaled-back version of the school in 2007.

Fun Time received final design approval in July, and in September, Collier County commissioners approved a request made by the school to be part of Collier County’s charitable organization impact deferral program.

The decision means the school will get a $79,000 break on impact fees. It also acts as matching funds for the grant the day care received from the Naples Children and Education Foundation, sponsors of the Naples Winter Wine Festival.