After a little over a year since a new building project broke ground, the Greene County Early Learning Center is nearing completion.

Following a child care survey that was done in 2016 with First Children’s Finance, the GCELC Board determined that they needed to build a bigger facility, which the new building broke ground adjacent to their current facility in August of 2021. GCELC Co-President Jacque Andrew says this was the right decision because they can increase their capacity by 50-percent or up to 148 kids.

“And that is an economic boon to this area because parents are very concerned about childcare when they come into the community they want to have good childcare. Over the years we have proven that we provide quality care in a learning environment and prepare kids for school. So we’re going to keep doing that and be able to do so on a larger scale.” 

The over $2 million building project features a lot of new items, including new classroom names for each of the developmental stages of kids. Those include the Originals for newborns-eight months, Travelers for 9-17 months, Explorers for 17-24 months, Inventors for 24-36 months, Designers for three year olds, Builders for four year olds, and Legends for five year olds to 4th graders. GCELC Director Cherie Cerveny explains why they chose to name the classrooms the way they did.

“Why with this project the biggest thing for us was to focus on the children. And the new names for the classrooms are based on who the children are, when they are that age, and what kinds of things they like to do.”

Other features include a staff lounge with lockers, quadrupling the size of the kitchen space, each classroom has its own HVAC system for better economic efficiency, along with two playgrounds that have yet to be installed, and a water bottle refilling station. 

Andrew notes that while certain items are not yet installed such as their full security system, the first day for kids will be September 26th with an open house and ribbon cutting to follow later this year.