Editor’s note: This is the 11th article in a multi-part series unpacking the effects of the shortage of quality, affordable childcare in Seward County on families, the local economy, employers, care providers, educators and children.
Life changed drastically when a Milford resident and single mother of four young children lost her only childcare option.
The woman relied on relatives to care for her kids while she worked during the day. When those relatives moved away, she was left with a tough choice: work to be able to feed her family or quit her job to stay with her children.
She chose both options, switching to the night shift so she could take care of her kids during the day and work at night. With no one to care for the kids overnight, that left her oldest son – a first grader – in charge of two infants and a toddler.
Teachers noticed when the first grader’s mood shifted at school after he’d been up all night caring for his siblings.
That prompted a call to Child Protective Services and the Milford Police Department.
Now the woman had another difficult decision to make: risk legal trouble and having her children taken away or uproot her family and move.
“Everybody was concerned that she just up and moved,” Milford Police Chief Darrin Kremer said, “but she moved to a location that she had more help. She didn’t have any help here.”
The case was resolved, Kremer said, and the family is now in a better situation with access to childcare.
A problem countywide
With few childcare options and long waiting lists with existing providers, parents like these are faced with difficult decisions every day.
The Milford Childhood Learning Center is hoping to change that by providing an affordable, quality care option for children and their families.
Milford is part of Seward County’s “childcare desert,” with at least 52 children lacking access to licensed care just in Milford. Countywide, that statistic is up to 189 children, but Milford resident Kylie Schildt said that number is actually closer to 284 without considering preschool openings.
Schildt is part of the board working to bring the Milford Childhood Learning Center to town.
She said most preschools enroll students on a half-day basis, so they still need somewhere to go for the rest of the day. Preschools aren’t filled to capacity, she said, because children don’t have care for the rest of the day. Parents aren’t able to transport them between school and a care center mid-day, so many skip preschool all together.
A solution for Milford
When Schildt learned the in-home provider who cared for her 11-month-old son and 3-year-old daughter was retiring, she wasn’t sure what to do.
She considered a shared nanny setup in which her family would split the cost of a nanny with another family while the nanny cared for both families’ children at one home or the other.
Taking into account four parents’ work schedules, what would happen if one of them was ill and having a stranger working in her home, it seemed like a logistical nightmare.
She heard comments from others that she should just stay home, but quitting her job and relying solely on her spouse’s income wasn’t going to cut it in today’s economy, where the average home is no longer affordable on a single income and the cost of groceries has skyrocketed.
After a lengthy search for open spots, Schildt learned Milford currently has just one in-home childcare provider and one childcare center. Between those, only two infant spots are available for ages 6 weeks to 18 months, and the waitlist for those spots exceeds the length of time a child is considered an infant.
Her former provider’s retirement affected about 10 kids. Now, her provider commutes from Lincoln to Schildt’s home to watch her son, and her daughter attends a care center in Seward.
She said she was lucky to find a spot there, but taking her daughter to Seward means commuting from Milford to Seward in the morning, then back to Milford for work, then back to Seward to pick up her daughter in the afternoon, then back home to Milford.
It also meant disenrolling her daughter from preschool at the Bellwood Christian Montessori School in Milford – a half-day preschool – because she had no in-town care options for the rest of the day.
“It’s a lot of stress for children and the parents having to transport children a great distance from where their care is,” Schildt said. “If we have to take them outside of our community, that’s a lot of road time and a lot of extra stress.”
She wants her children to grow up in Milford and experience everything a small town has to offer.
“You can’t have memories of growing up in a small town if you’re commuting outside of it every day,” she said.
Schildt said she wants to continue to grow her family, but she worries about the lack of options with another newborn.
“Instead of being super excited about adding to your family, you’re suddenly stressed about being able to find care,” she said.
Some families are in situations where they must coordinate care with different providers on different days of the week, and if one piece of the puzzle is out of place, the whole plan collapses.
“The people who do have quality providers are on a tightrope. It could be snapped anytime,” Schildt said, citing retirement, illness or a relocation as just a few of the reasons a care plan could fall apart.
She decided the only option was to create a long-term solution that would benefit not only her children but families across Milford and Seward County for years to come.
A nonprofit center
The Milford Childhood Learning Center will operate as a licensed nonprofit childcare, serving at least 39 children. It will prioritize infant care but will accommodate older children as well.
MCLC will operate under a board of directors. Founding board members are Katie Spohn, the Rev. Tim Springer and Dr. Brandon Henley. Kylie Schildt serves as the MCLC program coordinator, and Kathi Schildt serves as executive director.
Along with Little Cubs Daycare opening 60 new spots in Seward and Our Redeemer Little Learners opening roughly 90 new spots in Staplehurst, MCLC hopes to significantly narrow the county’s childcare gap.
Schildt and her mother, Kathi Schildt, began brainstorming about the best way to open a new care center.
They searched for a suitable building but couldn’t find one that fit what they needed.
They then approached Bellwood Mennonite Church to see if they could use a piece of land adjacent to the church as a childcare site.
Spohn became involved in the MCLC board because of her role as the minister of education at Bellwood.
“Our church has been praying to decide what we can do to further God’s mission with that piece of property,” Spohn said. “They came to our church council and presented their plan, and we thought ‘Finally, God has shown us a great opportunity to advance His mission and support the community.’”
The council took it to the church congregation, which overwhelmingly voted to lease the land to MCLC for 50 years for $1 under the condition that it only operate as a childcare center. If for any reason the center closes, the land will be returned to the church.
Other than its proximity and the land lease, MCLC will not be affiliated with Bellwood.
Spohn said MCLC will complement the Montessori preschool inside the church, giving families the option for nearby care before or after their preschool time.
“The 3-5-year-olds can walk across the parking lot,” she said.
Spohn said she herself experienced difficulties commuting to find her children care.
“My children are 16, 14 and 11, so I’m beyond the childcare years, but it’s not that long ago that I was having to travel back and forth between Lincoln with my kid, and we were side-swiped by a semi on our way home,” she said. “This will provide safe and quality childcare in the Milford community.”
Kylie Schildt used her background in business and grant writing to apply for a Business Childcare Partnership Grant through the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. The MCLC received $651,000 from the grant to cover furnishings, supplies and minor renovations to a childcare building, but it won’t pay for construction.
“The state is paying for everything inside the center if the community pays for the outside,” she said.
The Schildts worked with Southeast Community College on a plan for the building.
Each semester, students in SCC’s construction-related courses build a house from the ground up, complete with plumbing, electrical and all other systems. The houses are then sold at auction and moved off campus to the buyer’s property.
The Schildts signed a purchase agreement for the next SCC house and will move it to the Bellwood site to be used for the childcare center.
It will need a few modifications, including a fire suppression system, but this will allow the center to open within the quick timeline required by the DHHS grant and at a much lower cost than a commercial build.
“That’s going to make it so we can get it done by the end of the year,” Spohn said.
Keeping it local
In addition to sourcing the building locally, MCLC is working to keep as much of its spending as possible in Milford.
It is working with places like Pizza Kitchen, the Milford Senior Center and Main Street Market on catering contracts to provide the children with meals that comply with the Child and Adult Care Food Program guidelines.
Kylie Schildt said she has purchased other supplies through Main Street Market, and local contractors will be used for other aspects of the project when possible.
“We’ve tried to spend as many dollars as we can locally within the grant funds,” Kylie Schildt said.
Spohn said aside from being invested in the project personally, the Schildts were the ideal people to take on the MCLC project because of their experience in nonprofit management.
Kathi Schildt owns and operates Advanced Association Management in Milford, which serves more than 25 nonprofits, trade associations and other organizations with regard to financial management, strategic planning and sustainability. She holds a master’s degree in business.
Kylie Schildt also holds a business degree and works with AAM’s organizations.
“With all the organizations they manage, they have brought some of them from the brink of financial disaster to successful operation,” Spohn said. “They’re purely providing the back-office oversight and management. They’re not running the daycare. The board will make those decisions.”
The Schildts have donated their time and AAM’s resources to work on the MCLC project completely unpaid.
“Because of our background working with over 25 nonprofits and grant writing, it was a great fit when we determined we wanted to go this route because we do understand a lot of pieces that are essential in being successful,” Kathi Schildt said.
As a nonprofit, all revenues generated by MCLC will be reinvested into the center – be that through higher wages for care providers, additional training or reduced rates for families.
“It really has been a God thing all along. There have been some challenges along the way, but each time it feels like the spirit is moving in a way to make this happen,” Spohn said.
