Laura’s ambition was to give her daughter the highest quality of childcare. With your help, her dream grew into a thriving business.
You gave a local entrepreneur the confidence to start her business.
Laura knew that there was a better way to provide childcare. After moving from the US from Honduras, she got a job in behavioral health and started a family, eventually inviting her mother to join them in Bethany.
It was important to Laura that her daughter was raised in a setting that celebrated her Latin-American background. Watching her mother assist with caregiving, she saw the impact that bilingual instruction and culturally immersed teaching had on her child’s development. When it came time to enroll her daughter in preschool, Laura searched for options that would continue this level of care but came away wanting more.
Not one to give up easily, Laura approached her mother with an idea: why can’t we be the ones to do it? As excited as the two were to build their business, they were unsure where to start. That’s when Community Action’s Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) program stepped in.
CCR&R staff guided Laura and her mother through the complicated process of starting their own daycare, providing business and operation trainings in Spanish, as well as connecting them to a network of peer childcare providers in the area. “It was very helpful in our lives,” she explained. “We learned a lot.”
Laura and her mother opened their first preschool in their own home. Slowly but steadily, enrollment grew until there was a long waitlist to join. Laura wanted to open a second location but needed additional cribs and as a new business, financial margins were still tight. Community Action connected Laura with a small grant to pay for cribs. The investment enabled Laura to open her second location and the momentum for her business continued to grow.
Today, Laura operates 9 daycares and 2 centers and continues to expand, founding an elementary school and a summer camp all centered around Latin-American culture and bilingual teaching. She is thrilled that her business is providing her community members with careers in early learning and serving so many children with high quality, compassionate care.
Community Action offered more than just help to make her dream a reality. They also helped her grow it. “Because they had the belief, I started believing in myself” she offered. “It was the belief that it could be done.”