Like many communities, Buhler faced a shortage of childcare providers, especially considering that three in-home providers have retired over the past few years. The newly opened childcare center at Buhler MB Church isn’t just a blessing for the community, it’s a testament to the power of partnerships. When a local church and retirement community joined forces with a school in Hutchinson, great things happened.
“At Sunshine Meadows Retirement Community, we talked about doing a daycare for many years. We talked with Central Christian and they came over and we looked at one of the houses on campus, and we were thinking about possibly doing that, said Keith Pankratz, CEO, Sunshine Meadows. “We had a little momentum going and then then COVID set in. After a few years, we started to dialogue again and put together a partnership with Buhler MB Church hosting the daycare, Sunshine Meadows providing the food, and Central Christian operating it. We hope to incorporate the intergenerational aspect of it and have some of the residents come out for possibly a lunch or an activity like coloring with the kids, whatever it might be.”
The new daycare at Buhler MB church has room to accommodate 24 children, ages 6 weeks through 2.5 years. Classrooms that were once only used on Sundays are now renovated to be a welcoming, safe space for little ones, and will be used all week long. While many different funding sources were utilized, an Accelerator Grant from the Reno County Child Care Task Force helped bring the project to fruition.
Church member Dwight Wedel, also a member of the Buhler Community Foundation Advisory Board, was instrumental in helping the project secure the necessary funding: “We initially started out with the Reno County Child Care Task Force’s Accelerator Grant. Once we got some approval on those that was our sign that we just need to move forward with this project. And so we just went with faith that this is going to work. And it just kind of turned out. It's just a God thing that everything came out and worked the way it did.”
In addition to funding, the church needed to secure volunteer labor to take the project over the finish line. Fortunately, church members stepped up in a big way.
“One of the drivers for this project was volunteer labor. We had well over 20 different people from the church that volunteered for everything from demolition to helping build walls and put up cabinets and do carpentry work. There was a lot of donated labor and donated time, which saved us about $60,000 in the process,” said Dwight.
When Darcy Rhoades learned about the possibility of serving as the director of the childcare center at Buhler MB, she jumped at the opportunity. She had previously worked in childcare at a local elementary school and was ready to take on a place of her own.
"We're super excited for all the families, the staff and the community that are involved in getting this project going. Our infant room will serve babies from six weeks to 12 months, and then the toddler room will be 12 months to 2 1/2. Then at that point we have a third room, but it's mostly just kind of an overflow for them to prepare to go to a preschool program. Buhler MB has been awesome and has made sure that their building and the furnishings have been just amazing. We even have a brand new playground area of our own, and they do have facilities inside for when the weather is bad--a full gym that we have access to. Everyone has just been amazing at making sure that this is going to be great.”
Darcy is also grateful for the Reno County Childcare Task Force and all of the additional resources that have been brought to this often-overlooked industry.
“It has been really important because for me personally. It's been awesome to have the training set up. That's super helpful for just me as a teacher and for staffing purposes and keeping all of our people up to date on the qualifications that they need to be able to work in this area. I appreciate just the hard work that they've put in to make that possible for everybody.”
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