SPECIAL REPORT: FUTURE OF GROWING DREAMS IN QUESTION

Longtime preschool/daycare center facing crisis; will close if new path forward isn’t found — and soon

Six young children wiggled and squirmed as they eagerly sat at the feet of Hannah Guthrie, their preschool teacher who was opening the children’s book, “The Way I Feel.”

It was Monday morning, Nov. 18, and Growing Dreams Learning Center was beginning another week of preschool education and daycare/afterschool care for youngsters spanning in age from six weeks through 12 years old. It wasn’t much different from weeks before — and months and years before that — as Growing Dreams has been a staple in the Freeman community for generations, relied upon by parents with young children in need of the niche services only such facilities can provide.

But for how much longer?

That’s the question Growing Dreams Learning Center is wrestling with amidst serious financial challenges that are posing a significant risk to the future of the center that operates from the educational wing of the Bethany Mennonite Church.

“The reality is, Growing Dreams might be the next business to close,” said Guthrie, who in addition to a preschool teacher the last five years has been the facility’s director the past two. “We need help, and it’s not something I want to ask for, but we just don’t have a choice right now. We need the community to come together so we can keep Growing Dreams going for years to come.”

EDITORIAL: LET’S FIND A PATH FORWARD FOR GROWING DREAMS

The challenge stems from a financial shortfall that prevents the facility from adequately paying its staff, and facility constraints that impact efficiencies.

In addition to Guthrie, Growing Dreams employs five, and Guthrie says 90% of the tuition from the childcare programs pay for salaries.

A starting hourly wage of $12 for inexperienced childcare workers and $13 for those with experience — with no benefits — has resulted in a high level of turnover, and because of state regulations, a staff shortfall prevents Growing Dreams from reaching its licensed capacity of 45, thus impacting potential revenue from families paying for childcare.

There is a waiting list, Guthrie says, “and it breaks my heart. I wish we could take them all.”

As for the facility itself, space constraints, security deficiencies and an inefficient layout inside the Bethany church pose additional challenges.

When a daycare worker needs to change a diaper, for example, the entire group of children needs to tag along.

The Bethany Church also houses the local food pantry that is used by dozens of families the first and third Friday of every month.

There is no available kitchen, which means when Freeman Public is not in session and cannot provide a hot lunch — which it has done for years — the only option is to serve the children cold food.

And Growing Dreams pays a monthly rental fee of $700.

“We are so appreciative of the church, and I would never bite the hand that feeds us, but my one wish right now would be a facility that we could call our own,” said Guthrie. “That would allow us to have a permanent place in the community.”

All of this adds up to the real possibility that Growing Dreams Learning Center could shut its doors sooner rather than later, leaving a major hole in what the Freeman community is able to offer young families who may choose to live here. While there are still limited in-home day care operations locally, Growing Dreams is the only institutional option following the closure of Little Blessings at Freeman Academy earlier this year.

“We are in crisis mode,” says Cathy Herlyn, who serves on the Growing Dreams Learning Center’s four-person board of directors, who along with husband Troy has been using the facility to care for their 5-year-old son, Tyler, since she was six months pregnant.

That right; so important was daycare to the Herlyns that, when a spot at Growing Dreams came open, they started paying a monthly childcare fee for Tyler three months before he was born to ensure he had a place.

“At six months until 13 weeks old, I paid for my spot,” she said, “because that’s how critical it is.”

Immediate response

The challenges facing Growing Dreams Learning Center are not new; twice in the 1990s it faced and overcame significant financial challenges (see the accompanying history), and that’s what those involved are hoping for as 2024 draws to a close.

Growing Dreams will collect a free-will offering at a meal it will serve at the Freeman Community Center in conjunction with Hometown Christmas Saturday, Nov. 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. A strong response from the community would help infuse much-needed cash to help with operating expenses in the short-term.

Meanwhile, there have been other stop-gap measures. Grants Growing Dreams received in response to Covid-19 have been getting the facility by the past few years. The Bethany Church has waived the rental fee for the rest of the year out of concern for Growing Dreams, and families continue to subsidize the facility by purchasing and donating the supplies needed to operate — something that has been going on for years.

But those working with the daycare say only a long-term plan will save the facility.

To that end, the board of directors has — just in the past month — reached out to Freeman Mayor Michael Walter to share its deep concern about the future of the facility and its possible closure. While Walter says he appreciates the value of childcare and what it means to a community like Freeman, he told The Courier it was unlikely the city would step in as the financial savior. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t external support.

“It doesn’t affect me — I’m 69 years old,” said Walter. “Does it affect most of us? Probably not. But it will certainly affect all of Freeman if we go the other way. If we’re not going forward, we’re going backward. There is no neutral.”

Walter had connected Growing Dreams Learning Center with the Freeman Community Development Corporation (FCDC), which has recently stepped in with assistance and support. The FCDC is looking at operational expenses, models used in other communities, its relationship with District III Planning and Development, and ways to get the larger community involved to help find answers that could lead to long-term sustainability.

“Time is of the essence,” said Courtney Unruh, chair of the FCDC board of directors who has been meeting with Walter, Guthrie and the Growing Dreams Learning Center board to begin processing what has been, what is and what could be. “This is a crisis — absolutely.”

Foundational to growth

Shelly Wanninger, the marketing and development coordinator with the city of Freeman, says childcare is critical to any strong community.

“This is way bigger than a quality-of-life issue,” she said. “If you look at building a successful, thriving community, you have to a have a solid base, and daycare is that base.”

“If we’re not crying, we’re dying,” says Herlyn. “I have been on the board for four years and have seen how impactful daycares are to the success of our communities. Without daycare, families are forced to go elsewhere to find care, work, and even housing.”

The nurture and care for young children is what motivates Guthrie to keep going, even in the face of significant challenges and an uncertain future.

“I love watching them grow from babes to toddlers to those preschoolers, and I know the importance of those first five years,” says Guthrie, who moved to Freeman from Emery with her husband, Adam — a machinist who works in Humboldt — six years ago, simply because they liked the town. “You are essentially building the foundation for that child’s entire life — how they handle stressful situations, how their brain comprehends things later in life, and just the way that they learn. I know how important that is.”

“What we’re focusing on right now is learning what other communities are doing to be successful, and then how can we help with that?” Wanninger continues. “Is it a building that you need? Is it funding that you need? A grant? A low interest loan? Because we have resources.”

Even before the FCDC became involved, its board identified childcare as a short-term priority in its three-year strategic planning efforts.

“One of the priorities within the strategic plan is attracting and developing businesses, and that includes supporting our local daycare and getting behind them,” Unruh says. “We’re better together, and to be a healthy community, we need to be a growing community. And we can’t grow without a daycare.”

Steps forward

Unruh says she has taken a close look at operation and says Growing Dreams has minimal monthly expenses, “and the employees are not making high dollars.”

“It’s not like they’re overspending,” she says.

Guthrie says they have reached out for donations to help with the immediate needs “and we’ve cut costs as much as we can, but we are just at a point where we are losing money every month.”

Wanninger says there is funding available through grants, but not for operational expenses, and because the childcare shortage is a nationwide challenge, access to those grants is very competitive.

So what are the solutions?

Those who spoke for this story said there are various models out there; in some cases, the city has stepped in, in other cases health care facilities have played a major role, and there are examples of schools getting involved, too.

Still, many have remained independent because they have generated enough financial support to do so.

“We just kind of want to inform the community about where we are as a business and what our plans are for the future so the community can be more involved,” Guthrie says. “I’ve been on the inside here doing my best, and when it comes to reaching out, that’s not my strong suit, but we’re doing it now.”

At age 31, Guthrie wants to stay in this for the long haul and hopes to see Growing Dreams, not only survive, but thrive. She has seen directors come and go and the staff turnover has been in the dozens; “Who’s going to stick around for $12.50?” she says.

And Guthrie is exceedingly grateful that she is not alone in this.

“The involvement of the FCDC has just taken a lot off my shoulders, because it is a lot, especially with a facility that’s been here for so long,” she says. “I don’t want to be the one that’s in this position when it has to close, and I want to do everything that I can to prevent that from happening.”

To that end, she remains motivated.

“You know, the thing that goes through my mind is just the smiles on the kids’ faces,” she says. “I get so much love here. I feel like I get 10 times more love than I have stress. That’s a good way to look at it. It outweighs it for sure. Perspectives, right?”

Yet the stakes are high.

“Most people only think about daycare when they’re expecting or when they want to start a family or when they need that daycare before school,” says Herlyn. “But if we don’t feed the daycare, we don’t feed the school, we don’t feed our community and we don’t feed our workforce.

“If we don’t get behind our daycare,” she says, “we’re going to have a real problem on our hands.”

Coda

Ten young children sat around a low table perfect for their height. It was Tuesday morning, Nov. 19 and Guthrie and two daycare workers were helping the youngsters paint white paper plates red, brown and yellow. Their creation would be cut and used as feathers for the turkey they were making, just in time for Thanksgiving.

It was a scene similar to others that have played out over past weeks, years and decades, as Growing Dreams Learning Center has helped lay the foundation for hundreds of children since it began in 1976,

But for how much longer?

That appears to be up to the community.