George, Iowa — Preparations are nearing completion and the opening is very near for a community daycare center in the city of George.
Taylor Klingenberg is on the committee that’s been working on establishing the new George Community Daycare, called the Lil Mustangs Child Care Center. He says while the community has some in-home child care providers, there’s isn’t a community daycare facility.
(As above) “We’ve got a couple of home providers…I believe two of them right now and a couple more in the past. We’ve got really great ones and we don’t want to put them out of business and we don’t believe we’re going to because they do a great job and there are certainly going to be people that prefer that. But, there’s been a big need in George for a lot of years and we hope that it will help the community and then, along with the community that it will help the school district…keeping some kids in the district and keep them away from open enrolling out of the district.”
Klingenberg says planning for the Lil Mustangs Child Care Center began about three years ago.
(As above) “We started meeting about….it’s gonna be pretty close to three years ago…I think this fall probably. We really kind of started out with ordering a study…First Children’s Finance out of, I believe Des Moines….did a big study for us on what the need actually was and we were surprised (that) the need came back higher than we anticipated. We knew there was a pretty good need, and then it came back that there were, I believe, close to one hundred children….a deficit of about a hundred, so that really kind of reaffirmed what our thoughts were and our belief that there was a big need for this.”
He says along the way they had considered constructing a new building to house the center, moving a building in, or a temporary structure, but none of those options proved to be feasible. Then, Klingenberg says, restructuring at the George-Little Rock Community Schools opened up a space for Lil Mustangs Child Care Center to use.
(As above) “Thanks to Pat O’Donnell at the school and some of the staff there, especially the school board. They kind of got us going again this past January or February. They really started looking into doing a realignment in the school district. And so that involved moving elementary classes over from George to Little Rock and then moving junior high classes from Little Rock to George in the high school building. So that opened up the elementary building here, or part of it anyway. We’re going to be operating out of about half of the elementary building, and then along with that we’re able to get meals through the school.”
He says they’re coming close to having the center ready to open.
(As above) “Right now we’re getting some small changes to the rooms done and we were putting cribs together and some of that stuff. We’re really excited to finally get some of those furnishings in. We’re really close to opening up.
Klingenberg says they had hoped to have the Lil Mustangs Child Care Center open by now, but there have been some things beyond their control that have slowed things down just a bit.
(As above) “We were initially hoping the beginning of August, well that kind of turned into end of August and now it’s likely going to be that Tuesday after Labor Day, is what we’re really hoping for. We’re getting real close, we’ve kind of been telling our families hopefully that Tuesday after Labor Day. That’s not set in stone, but that’s very likely.”
He says they’ve hired a Director who is now in the process of hiring staff for the facility. If you’d like more information about the new Lil Mustangs Child Care Center in George, Klingenberg invites you to visit their Facebook page, or call the Director’s Office at 712-475-6088.
Thank you to our news partners Lyon County News for this story
