Child’s play
Three-year-old Shanley Oakes started in the toy police car, working the make-believe radio. Then she checked out the slide and the fire truck, then crawled through the play room full of balls. Before the hour was out, she’d also tried her small hand at Skee Ball.
“She’s a happy camper,” said her mom, Carolyn Zacheis on Thursday, as she walked away from Drop In and Play with a huge smile on her face. It was hard to tell who was happier, mother or daughter. Zacheis was delighted with the prospect of an entire hour of child-free shopping at NorthTown Mall. She thought she might mosey over to Sears with no worries about a little voice saying “I want.”
Today is the 11th day of business for the new child-care center at the mall, and already owners Noelle and Chad Wilson are seeing repeat customers during this busy holiday shopping season. For $5 an hour, parents can drop off children ages 2-11 at the 5,600-square-foot center that offers toy cars, a miniature village for playing dress-up, train sets, basketball, air hockey, crawling mazes, jungle gyms and the ball pit. Four computers are set up for video games and DVDs are shown on a large screen. Children can stay for up to four hours while parents shop, get their hair cut or go to the movies or dinner. The price per hour declines for additional children, and parents who want to stay and play with their child pay $2.50 per hour.
“This is along the lines of Chuck E. Cheese with a babysitter,” Noelle Wilson said.
For years, the former teacher sat just outside where her business now is with her own two boys, as they burned off energy in the mall’s free play area. She wondered why no businesses existed at malls to take care of children while parents shopped.
After five years of dreaming, she and her husband took the plunge. They dipped into their savings and spent $40,000 setting up the business and equipping it with play equipment and security measures, such as cameras and locked doors that separate the play area from the check-in desk.
Noelle Wilson said that aside from the play centers in Fred Meyer stores and in some gyms, she hasn’t seen any businesses that offer services similar to hers. Fred Meyer offers an hour of free babysitting for children ages 2-5. However, Wilson said she has seen a similar concept in resorts in other states.
The Wilsons, both 37 and Spokane natives, bring suitable talents to their business. Noelle was a teacher for three years, but also has a business degree and helped her parents run their company for years. Chad is a financial consultant who also worked for several years for the Express child-care program at Spokane Public Schools.
A total of seven people work at Drop In and Play, two on duty at all times. The center is open during all mall hours. Chad Wilson’s father is helping out as are two of the couple’s nieces and a friend. Regardless, all employees are trained in CPR and first aid and undergo background checks. Parents also receive pagers in case the center needs to contact them. To retrieve their children, parents need to present identification and the pager they were given. The ID must match that used when the parent signed in, Wilson said.
“I think this is a wonderful idea, wonderful,” said Carol Parrott of Spokane as she played at the center with her three grandchildren. When the children visit from Oregon, Parrott sometimes brings them to the free play center at NorthTown. On Thursday, she noticed Drop In and Play and decided to give it a try. Annie, 5, and Austyn, 2, squealed as they crawled through a soft tunnel and landed on hundreds of tiny plastic balls. Meanwhile, employees were oohing and ahhing over Parrott’s grandson Jesse, who is only 8 months old.
Wilson said most of the children haven’t seemed to miss their parents at all during the hours they were apart.
“We’ve only had three criers, but they’ve been just 2 (years old) and never away from their mom,” she said.