DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — A major investment in Decatur. The city council is putting almost $200,000 into a Jasper Street project that will bring a daycare back to the city's urban core.Â
Cherri Johnson grew up about four blocks away from the old Wee Folks daycare on Jasper Street.
"There's a big need for a daycare and like I said, an unconventional daycare. A facility more geared towards family care versus daycare," Johnson told WAND News.
In just a few months she'll be reopening the facility to serve families in the urban core.
"The goal of this is to help the parents that are working those unconventional hours. Our goal is to be eventually be an around the clock facility," Jonnson explained.
Johnson has worked in childcare for 18 years and now owns Love, Learning and Laughter Daycare in Decatur. She first came up with the idea for an alternative-style daycare as part of the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program at Richland Community College.
"We'll be more geared toward learning a secondary language, coping skills, life skills training and helping the kids with financial literacy training and that sort of thing, from the ground up," Johnson said.
City leaders said a workforce development assessment found this kind of facility is needed.
"There are individuals that can't go back into the workforce because of a lack of childcare," Cordaryl Patrick, Director of Economic and Community Development for the city of Decatur, told WAND News.
The city hopes the flexible daycare will help more parents get back to work, filling hundreds of open jobs in Macon County.
"Some folks need childcare for a day, some need childcare for a couple of hours— I need to get on a zoom call for a couple of hours and just need childcare for a couple of hours," Patrick explained.
With a focus on the whole family, Johnson plans to serve 175, making generational change in the city.
"Anything the kids show a need for, we want to be able to provide that,"Â Johnson added. "Because what could we do if we provided all those resources from the ground up?"
She will hire about 90 staff members to get the daycare fully staffed. Construction is set to begin this summer. Decatur is purchasing the building and parking lot, and paying for renovations, with CDBG funds.
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