Winfield

Candy Mountain Daycare

Nomination from Lisbeth Stone

I think I speak for most parents in saying we all feel a little stuck. Having a job that cannot be done remotely while having the kids’ remote learning is a struggle. Candy Mountain Day Care was the solution to many working parents’ problems.

The level of care they take in keeping up with ever changing safety protocols is amazing. Their dedication to the little ones and employees is admirable. They have adapted their day to day, juggled new extensive cleaning duties, and manage to do all of this while staying positive. They truly are the unsung heroes in this crisis.

Union County Small Business Community Champion’s Story

Child Care and small businesses have unfortunately had a lot of negative financial hardship throughput the Covid 19 pandemic. The child care industry plays a huge role in our communities for our working families. Unfortunately many parents were out of work and the demand for child care became less; leaving centers in a financial crisis with no income however all expenses remaining. 

Many centers have been forced to close their doors. As parents head back to work the demand is rising for child care again, however now there are much less to choose from. 

Child care centers that remain open are going above and beyond to ensure we are following every safety protocol for our community. 

Pre-Covid cleaning procedures are extreme, frequent, and thorough. We are always in a situation where the spread of germs can be high, so we are extremely diligent with cleaning. 

With Covid we are that much more diligent. In the beginning of Covid many cleaning products were not available. Thankfully I am always one to stock up so when we returned after 3 months we were lucky enough to have supplies to enforce maximum cleaning. 

The County and State supplied us with cleaning grants to be able to purchase supplies which was extremely helpful during this unsure time. Candy Mountain was also very fortunate to receive the PPP grant to ensure we were able to pay bills and pay staff throughout the extremely slow several months when we returned in June of 2020.

We closed on March 16th 2020 thinking it would be for two weeks- The reality was we were closed for a total of three months.

The fear and panic was setting in, questioning if and when we will reopen.  Our center previously was full with 30 children, when we returned we had only 5 children attend. The remainder of the summer through the fall were slow.  With the help of the grant I thankfully kept all of my staff employed full time.

Without amazing staff you can’t operate. We all cooperated and learned to operate in our new normal. 

Over the last few months enrollment has pick up a lot. It’s so exciting to see our classrooms filling up again. I feel extremely fortunate to have a small business that is thriving in this difficult time.  We really stuck it out and pulled through last summer. I am proud to have worked hard over the last seventeen years. I am so thankful for my amazing staff. Thank you to all of our families who support Candy Mountain and give is the opportunity to keep their children safe while out in the workforce.

We appreciate your business! We know you have a choice, thank you for choosing us!