RPN Today - S2E5 - After School Childcare

Russell Shaffer Author

02/02/2024 Added

61 Plays

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Nebraska is home to more than 3,000 licensed childcare and daycare centers. But Our Place After School Care in Hastings is unique among its peers. While many Nebraska communities have found solutions to the burgeoning need for quality childcare through grant funds or contracts with licensed locals, Our Place serves a different and often overlooked demographic—teens with special needs. Learn more about how Rural Prosperity Nebraska can help your community at ruralprosperityne.unl.edu

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[00:00:00.027](soft music)
[00:00:23.490]Nebraska is home to more than 3000 licensed
[00:00:26.340]childcare and daycare centers.
[00:00:28.620]But our place afterschool care
[00:00:30.240]in Hastings is unique among its peers.
[00:00:33.270]While many Nebraska communities have found solutions
[00:00:36.030]to the burgeoning need for quality childcare
[00:00:38.700]through grant funds
[00:00:39.630]or contracts with licensed locals,
[00:00:42.210]our place serves a different
[00:00:43.590]and often overlooked demographic,
[00:00:46.260]teens with special needs.
[00:00:48.150]Founded in 2018 by Adeline Johnson
[00:00:50.670]for her 13-year-old daughter, Zoe,
[00:00:53.100]the center opened in the basement of Faith Lutheran Church
[00:00:55.860]with two volunteers and three teens.
[00:00:58.770]The teens made crafts, read books, played games,
[00:01:01.860]and participated in other educational activities
[00:01:04.560]during afterschool hours.
[00:01:06.840]But as they brought on new teachers and teens,
[00:01:09.270]it became clear
[00:01:10.170]to Johnson they were outgrowing their space.
[00:01:13.906]So I was in the extension office,
[00:01:17.580]best place to find materials ever,
[00:01:20.130]and I came across a little flyer that said,
[00:01:24.570]are you a small business?
[00:01:26.370]Do you need help?
[00:01:27.750]And I thought, well, yeah, I do.
[00:01:31.350]The extension office is where Johnson met
[00:01:33.390]with a rural prosperity Nebraska business coach
[00:01:35.850]from the eCommunities program.
[00:01:37.800]She goes, all right, this is how this works.
[00:01:40.830]This is how you work with a board.
[00:01:42.360]This is how you look for funding.
[00:01:44.910]This is what your marketing needs to look like.
[00:01:48.390]So all the things that she's explaining to me, I'm going,
[00:01:52.170]oh, well that makes sense, right.
[00:01:54.540]But you need someone who can do that.
[00:01:56.730]You need someone who can lead you through
[00:01:58.470]and say, here's your next step.
[00:02:00.480]Here's your next thing.
[00:02:02.971]The hours that she saved is amazing
[00:02:06.150]and the connections that she had, amazing.
[00:02:10.200]Conversations with Rural Prosperity Nebraska
[00:02:12.390]staff led Johnson to not only finding
[00:02:14.610]a new and larger space,
[00:02:16.440]but to founding the Freedom Factory Consignment Store
[00:02:19.140]in the same building.
[00:02:21.210]Their peers have a job and they get money,
[00:02:26.010]and they can decide how to use that money.
[00:02:28.920]My kid doesn't have a job, so we decided,
[00:02:31.080]well, we'll start the Freedom Factory,
[00:02:33.030]and they can sell their items.
[00:02:35.430]We'll take just enough to be able to cover the materials
[00:02:38.580]and things for them to make it, and they take the rest.
[00:02:42.150]It has worked out fabulously.
[00:02:44.550]She has no plans to slow the ball
[00:02:46.230]she got rolling,
[00:02:47.340]having witnessed the benefits the center provides
[00:02:49.350]for her daughter, as well as other Hasting residents
[00:02:52.140]with special needs children.
[00:02:53.580]Upside, seeing all of these families
[00:02:59.419]that come and go.
[00:03:00.930]This is what our family has been waiting for.
[00:03:03.720]My kid loves being here.
[00:03:05.820]Thank you for doing this.
[00:03:10.350]It's them with their peers.
[00:03:13.200]This gives them the opportunity to be with their friends.
[00:03:18.063](soft music)

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RPN Today - S2E5 - After School Childcare

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