WILKIE - Michellene Hoey, in a delegation to Wilkie town council at their March 13 meeting, presented the council with the possibility of an expanded, 36-space daycare facility in Wilkie to meet the needs of residents.
“I wanted to come and clue in the town on what my intentions are with the building I’m currently in,” Hoey said, referencing the building on 2nd Ave in Wilkie that used to be the home of Wilkie’s Independent Living Services.
It’s Hoey’s vision to start a daycare centre rather than the day home she’s currently running now that $10-a-day childcare has been implemented by the government and if she can secure funding from the provincial government.
“We’ve exhausted all of the daycare spaces, and despite pleas to licence, licence, licence, nobody will,” she said, adding that if the funding is approved for Wilkie’s newest daycare, she and her husband will move out of the building.
After moving out, the daycare would open 36 licensed spaces full-time, a vast expansion considering Hoey currently has 12 spaces in her day home, with six spaces filled full-time and six spaces filled part-time.
Hoey currently has 10 children on her waiting list and several parents asking to have full-time positions. Overworked, she’s still received four to five phone calls looking to place eight more kids in her care.
Thirty-one spaces in the daycare are already accounted for should they receive their funding.
“There is an extreme need. Wilkie has become an extremely young community,” she said, noting that it will also create seven full-time and two part-time professional jobs in town.
Their current timeline sees infants in their care for six months, toddlers for a year and a half, and preschoolers for three years. The daycare would have the capacity for six infants, 10 toddlers and 20 preschoolers.
“We have a real ambitious date of opening on Sept 5,” Hoey said, adding that the building is mostly ready, only requiring a few things such as more windows in the basement, a sprinkler system, a fence and equipment.
“We’re hoping to get that on the ball for the summer, all depending whether we get approved through the community needs program.
“If Wilkie doesn’t do it now, Wilkie will never have a daycare,” Hoey said.
“It brings employment and people. A lot of the graduating class in the last few years has gone into education. Maybe they'll come back,” Hoey speculated.
If the organization gets funding, the board has asked Hoey to stay on as executive director, with an exemption for her schooling.
The board is currently made up of community members who want to see it succeed, and the ministry has asked for a small board currently, and if the daycare secures government funding, it can expand.
"It would be dependent if our funding is delayed. We still want to go ahead with all of this, but then we're dependent on some donations," Huey told the News-Optimist.
Hoey also noted that anyone who is even remotely interested should check out Saskatchewan Polytechnic's free childcare courses.
“...there is no upfront cost if you’re working for a daycare centre … they pay for books, courses, and it’s an accelerated zoom meeting,” Hoey said, which means it’s a three-hour course every Tuesday evening.
“...pass on the word, if they need more information they can call me. It’s part of the Building the Future programming,” she said.
If opened, the organization is also anticipating being able to hire summer students and provide work experience for high school students in Wilkie.
“This is great. It’s great news for our town … it’s a win-win situation. It will help retain our younger generation in our town,” Councillor Clarke Jackson said.
