Central Illinois needs more child care options – especially high-quality, affordable options. There’s no magic wand to make that happen.
WGLT found three business owners and nonprofit organizations that charted their own unique paths toward expanding child care capacity in the area. They’ve all recently opened, or will soon open, spaces where kiddos can stay safe and engaged while their parents or guardians are at work.
That’s a big deal partly because it doesn’t happen very often. Only four licensed daycares have opened this year in McLean County, and only 12 did through all of last year, according to data from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services [DCFS].
Here’s a look at who they are and how they’re doing it.
Joshua Tree Ministries and Childcare Center
Former District 87 teacher Shelley Leman wants to open the Joshua Tree Childcare Center by the end of the year, in a remodeled building on Bell and Clinton streets in Bloomington.
Joshua Tree is a nonprofit, and Leman said her mission is much bigger than a daycare. She wants to help families break free from poverty, by offering holistic care for the entire family. She hopes to work with her families and help them set goals and make connections in the community to achieve them.
“I got a full picture of what poverty looks like,” Leman said of her 20 years of teaching. “I just want a chance to give kids an equitable start, and to give their parents an opportunity to have a different life than maybe they grew up with.”
Joshua Tree plans to only take infants when it first opens, but will later expand to other age ranges, plus a before- and after-school program. District 87 families will get preference at the start. At full capacity, Joshua Tree would serve about 75 children, Leman said.
"I have gotten so many Facebook messages about families who need daycare right now because their child isn't in a good area or doesn't feel safe at their current daycare."Wren McMorris, owner of Little Love Bugs Daycare
“I want to start from ground zero,” Leman said. “And we can look at the difference [it makes] with a more holistic approach to quality child care.”
She expects a lengthy waiting list, which will open about three months before the doors do. Leman knows firsthand how hard it is to find good child care – both from her experiences as a teacher, and as a single mom herself. There are now around 38 child care centers in McLean County, with around 3,500 kiddos, according to state data. Centers tend to be expensive.
“Oftentimes, I had second-graders that were watching infant brothers and sisters at night and were exhausted in the morning, in circumstances that are just not great for any child, but are sometimes the only choice for a parent,” Leman said.
The hardest part so far, she said, is raising money and awareness as a young nonprofit. She likens it to needing experience to get a job but needing a job to get experience.
“A lot of people are waiting to see that our impact is going to be what we say it's going to be,” she said.
Little Love Bugs Daycare
Across town in Normal, Wren McMorris is starting what she hopes will be a career as a care provider.
In January, McMorris opened her own home-based business called Little Love Bugs Daycare. She’s caring for three kiddos so far – the maximum number she can have until she gets licensed by DCFS. She’s going through the DCFS licensing process now and hopes to get it in a few months, allowing her to expand capacity up to eight.
“It’s a lot of rules that are very strict and to the point, because it’s all making sure kids are safe,” she said.
McMorris has wanted to do this since she was a kid. Her mother runs her own home-based daycare, where McMorris helped out as a kid herself. They remain neighbors today.
“It's really just the love, the family feel. They love me. I'm like their second mother, that just fills everything in me, like I love it so much. I love to be kids’ person. It's awesome,” she said.
Like Leman, McMorris said she expects a lot of demand. Home-based options are often more affordable than full child care centers. There are 72 licensed home-based daycares in McLean County, serving over 750 children, according to state data.
“There's a huge demand for good child care here. I have gotten so many Facebook messages about families who need daycare right now because their child isn't in a good area or doesn't feel safe at their current daycare,” McMorris said. “And that just breaks my heart to see that because, like, it's daycare. They should feel like a second home because they're there for so long during the workday.”
The biggest challenge, she said, is feeling like some perceive her as a “baby-sitter,” in part because she’s only 18. It’s much more than that to her, she said.
“This is really a career, and something I’ve worked so hard to be good at,” she said.
Boys & Girls Club Intergenerational Center
Around 30 miles north of Bloomington-Normal, the community of Fairbury has figured out a creative solution to child care outside of the school day.
A few weeks ago, the Boys & Girls Club of Livingston County opened its new $6.4 million Intergenerational Center in Fairbury. The 17,000-square-foot space has a high school-size gym, four classrooms, a multipurpose room, and a commercial kitchen for preparing meals. It’s an Intergenerational Center because it doubles as a senior center, with dedicated space [including a fitness center] that’s safely cordoned off from where the kiddos hang out. It’s the Boys & Girls Club’s first such intergenerational space in Illinois, said Jodi Martin, the club’s executive director.
“We’re hardly ever closed here, this being a rural club. Parents just don’t have any place to put their children,” said Martin. “When the schools are closed, the club is open.”
Before now, the Boys & Girls Club in Fairbury only had capacity for about 80 kids in its regular after-school program, Martin said. The new facility expands that to 185.
Martin said that’s perfectly timed, as the Prairie Central school district plans to open a new centralized elementary school across the street in Fairbury in the next few years.
“What we can provide here is that after-school [program], so when parents are at work they don't have to worry about their kids. The school system works with us. They drop off their kids at our location, and we take care of them until [parents] come pick them up after work. And some of them work in Bloomington, some of them work in the surrounding cities, and so they don't have a way to get their kids. So having a place like this allows them that opportunity,” Martin said.
And like McMorris, Martin said they’re not baby-sitters. Kids get healthy meals, help with their homework, and a chance to play with robotics and other STEM toys. The club also does a summer camp, where they discreetly attack summer learning loss.
“We make it fun, so they don't even know they're learning,” Martin said.
The hardest part, she said, was paying for it. Other than some grants for land acquisition, the $6.4 million facility was mostly privately funded, Martin said. It took a lot of small-group information sessions to generate support to get the project launched, over a period of years. And they still have $2.4 million to raise, even with the doors open.
“Especially in a town of 3,500 [people], it's extremely difficult to build a $6.4 million building in a community of this size,” Martin said. “But the size of the community doesn't matter. It's the hearts of the people in the community, and if they want something, they will support it.”
They are also exploring getting a full child care license from DCFS to further expand services, Martin said. There are only five child care centers in all of Livingston County (population of over 35,000), with capacity for 161 kids, plus 17 more home-based providers, according to state data.
