Rare Care Southeast Day Care Caters To Children Of All Races And Income Levels

Five children sat on a blue braided rug at the feet of day-care teacher Leanna Jackson.

Jackson captivated them with a fantasy tale about a dill pickle that comes to life and runs away when someone tries to eat it.

On cue, the children shouted, “Stop that pickle!” and laughed.

At the Southeast Day Care Center, story time is as much a part of the routine as snacks and naps. And the center at Sixth and Stone is as much a part of the life of East Spokane as the neighborhood’s churches and community center.

It was founded 30 years ago by a group of women who had a vision of providing quality day care at affordable prices. They’ve clung to that vision.

“People think child care is just baby sitting,” said Director Sug Villella.

It’s not. The center strives to prepare children for school and to teach them how to get along in the world.

When one little boy knocked down another one, he was ordered by the teachers to apologize. He gave his victim a hug.

Among the lessons, the youngest children are taught to recognize letters and their sounds, and the names of colors.

The older kids get more intense schooling but also have time for art projects or visiting the branch library next door. Occasional field trips break the routine.

“The children really need to be in the program to prepare them for going into what we call the big school,” said Lee Wade, a member of the center’s board.

The educational component is just one of the strengths of the center. Its diversity is another.

The parents are professionals, office workers, laborers and some welfare recipients. The families also are ethnically mixed, and the rainbow of faces has become a point of pride for Wade and the others involved in the center.

In recent years, the children of immigrants from Russia, China, Africa and Southeast Asia have been enrolled.

“We have a little United Nations over there,” said Wade. “They get along so well together.

“They are so happy and pleasant and so excited about learning.”

Wade, who has an associate degree in early childhood education, said she is convinced the center’s educational component contributes to success in school and beyond.

Parent Kim Macy said she called or visited virtually every day care in Spokane before enrolling her two children at the center a year ago.

“It’s set up more like a school than other day cares,” said Macy, an office manager for a water pipe company.

Jessica Nyberg, a newly employed dental assistant, said she first took her infant son to the day care because of recommendations from friends.

“Not too many day cares will take newborns,” she said, holding her 8-month-old boy in a carrier.

The center is one of a handful in Spokane that takes newborns. After-school care is available through age 12.

Agwa Taka, who came to Spokane from Ethiopia eight years ago, works as a maintenance man for a downtown church. He said the day care made it possible for him to work while his wife attended college. They don’t have a lot of money, he said.

The center offers a sliding fee scale based on income. The lowest charge is $265 a month for one child and about $425 for two children.

That’s about half of what the highest-priced day cares in Spokane charge, Villella said.

By offering reduced rates, the day care is left with a perennially tight budget, just like some of the families it serves.

Employees are paid minimum wage and have no benefits.

The center is looking for donations to improve its facilities and expand programs.

The board wants to add classroom space to the upper part of the existing gymnasium so the center will have more room for after-school care.

The East Central Community Organization Steering Committee has set aside federal money to help pay for part of the $90,000 remodeling project.

And a year ago the South Spokane Rotary Club adopted the day care as its top service project. The Rotarians painted the day care walls, patched the roof and started buying new playground equipment.

“We felt that Southeast Day Care would really benefit from a helping hand,” said Robert Pyle, treasurer of the Rotary club.

He said the club’s contributions, including the value of the volunteer labor, could approach $20,000.

Villella is grateful for the help, and she’s looking for more contributions from other sources.

She wants to set up a scholarship program for low-income families who can’t afford even the reduced rates. She also would like to hire a Spanish-speaking teacher and a teacher who knows sign language.

Villella also would like to offer weekend child care.

Board members hope to establish an endowment fund that would pay for those and future needs.

“We are busy all the time raising money,” said board member Wade.

Wade was a founding member of the nonprofit League of Women for Community Action, the longtime operator of the day care. She and other women in East Spokane formed the league after helping a family recover from a fire in the 1960s.

They started talking with residents about what they needed in the neighborhood and learned that many young families had no one to take care of their children during the day.

As a result, the league opened the center at a church in the late 1960s.

Over the following decade, the group raised nearly a half-million dollars in contributions to pay for a new building.

It used the donations to match a community development grant from the federal government.

The current day care was opened in the early 1980s.

The city of Spokane, which administered the federal grant, is the legal owner of the building and leases it to the day care for a $1 a year, enabling the center to offer lower prices to parents.

“We pride ourselves not only on keeping our costs low for people who need it but in having a quality program as well,” Villella said.

The employees like the center so much that several of them have their own children enrolled there, contributing to a family atmosphere.

“We try to make it very homey here,” Villella said.

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