ASHLAND — Nearly a year and a half after Foundations Community Childcare opened its doors, staff cut the ribbon on a brand new outdoor playground.
The playground was paid for using a $300,000 federal Transportation, Housing and Urban Development grant.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, parents and community stakeholders ogled at the sandy areas decorated with faux tree stumps, logs and other natural elements for children to explore.
Two boys broke in the new space, bouncing from log to log and burying their hands in the sand.
Foundations Childcare was founded in response to the high demand for affordable child care in Ashland County.
There are 118 students enrolled at the center — 83% of the facility’s total capacity. Foundations serves children aged 6 weeks to 12 years old from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The center started with just one room per age group — infant, toddler, preschool and school age — and has now expanded to seven rooms due to climbing enrollment.
Four of those rooms are dedicated to infant and toddler care and are full with waitlists. Some of the 20 infants on the waitlist haven’t even been born yet.
“Ashland County as a whole is kind of a desert for licensed child care centers that service that 6-weeks-old up to 2.5-years-old population,” Foundations Director Brandy Scheetz said. “Child care is not a lucrative business to be in, to be honest with you.”
Scheetz’s role as director involves overseeing curriculum, organizing fundraising events, seeking new grants and maintaining relationships with sponsors and community partners.
“I left a position that I loved because I was so intrigued by the fact that this community had the support of so many local businesses who seem to really understand that in order for this to work, it needs to be a partnership,” Scheetz said.
Scheetz also navigates the day-to-day challenges of running a child care center, such as finding and retaining quality staff.
“What we really need to have a high-quality facility are lead teachers who work a full 40-hour week and who are adequately compensated for the job that they do,” Scheetz said.
Scheetz expects there will continue to be a waitlist for infant care. As the already-enrolled infants get older, there may be waitlists for the other age groups too, which could delay when children move up to their next age-based classroom.
How did Foundations get to where it is today?
In 2020, the Ashland County Community Foundation’s Women’s Fund launched a child care initiative after a steering committee met to discuss the needs of women in Ashland County.
“The lack of access to high quality affordable child care was keeping women out of the workforce, was keeping them down financially, was sometimes keeping them in bad relationships, was keeping them underemployed or, not able to advance in their career,” said Courtney McNaull, ACCF’s community engagement director.
Once the need for child care was recognized, The Women’s Fund began to assess its role in addressing the issue. That role would evolve into the Fund’s most involved project yet: creating a new child care center.
The four-year collaborative initiative raised $4.8 million and birthed Foundations, which now operates as a separate entity with its own nonprofit board.
It was the result of careful planning.
Phase one: Ideation
The Women’s Fund hosted another steering committee meeting with local nonprofit child care providers to discuss the struggles they see and hear from parents.
Those struggles illuminated how a child care center could be set up to be most beneficial for Ashland residents. The criteria included:
- A dedicated infant and toddler space
- A location near the industrial park as a resource to help those employers attract and retain a workforce, and encourage them to invest
- Funding that involves multiple revenue streams so that child care is not solely self-pay
- Expanded hours to meet the needs of parents with nontraditional work hours
Phase two: Development
Next, The Women’s Fund started collecting data, including a survey sent to Industrial Park employees, to further understand parents’ child care needs.
Through the data, The Women’s Fund established a statement of need and a summary of the plan. Some of the most telling findings were:
- The county had only three licensed child care centers that accepted infants and toddlers. Together, these centers provided only 26 spaces for infants and 56 for toddlers.
- Ashland County is home to approximately 3,000 children under the age of five.
“We knew we’re not going to be the child care provider — that’s not our role — but what we do have is strong community connections and access to resources, so we can get the ball rolling on this,” McNaull said.
The steering committee considered partnering with existing nonprofit preschools to expand services, but decided it ultimately was not the right fit.
“The lack of access to high quality affordable child care was keeping women out of the workforce, was keeping them down financially, was sometimes keeping them in bad relationships, was keeping them underemployed or, not able to advance in their career.”
ACCF community engagement director Courtney McNaull
The only other option was to start from scratch and create a nonprofit.
A Foundations Board was formed, comprising of some steering committee members, child care experts, education professionals and others.
Board and steering committee members continued to engage strategic partners and community stakeholders, including Ashland Mayor Matt Miller, Ashland County Commissioners and Ashland County Jobs and Family Services staff.
“[It was] bringing a bunch of people to the table and laying out: here’s what we’re doing, what questions do you have? And building that consensus,” McNaull said.
Phase three: Planning
After forging those relationships in Ashland, it was time to finalize a plan for the building and develop a preliminary budget.
Jerry Baker, a local developer and entrepreneur, donated the land for Foundations in January, 2023.
“He has a lot of property in Industrial Park, and I think he saw the opportunity for it to benefit businesses and even potentially attract other businesses to come,” McNaull said, “so it was really a win-win.”
Kristin Aspin, chief program officer of the Women’s Fund, developed an estimated budget and fundraising goal of $4.5 million, which accounted for construction costs, three months of operations and a $1 million endowment.
Then it was time for the final step: the fundraising and phase-out.
Phase four: Fundraising
Early on, ACCF had fundraising success with the support of Robert and Janet Archer, notable Ashland philanthropists, who made a donation of $1 million.
The Industrial Park businesses that expressed support for the project followed through too, with the Barbasol Foundation, BCU Electric and SJE Inc. donating between $100,000-249,000.
The Women’s Fund lists 45 corporate donors, including some who also made in-kind contributions of goods and services.
While fundraising, ACCF worked with a local construction company to start planning construction.
McNaull said the child care initiative took more staff time and energy from the entire foundation than they initially expected.
“It was bigger than anything that the Women’s Fund had ever taken on before, so it just shifted a lot of our energy into that for a while,” she said.
After the facility opened in June of 2024, The Women’s Fund took their hands off the project completely, passing that responsibility to Scheetz.
“[Aspin] kind of gradually removed herself from [Foundations] in such a way that would help them to be sustainable,” McNaull said, “We want them to be successful as a standalone entity and they know that we’re here if they need anything. It’s almost like a parent relationship, it’s like they’re walking on their own now.”
Has the initiative been successful in meeting child care needs?
Shelby Connell, whose 2-year-old attends Foundations, said her son enrolled there when he was almost 1. Prior to that, she was on waiting lists for child care centers in Ashland and Richland counties. She felt like the effort was hopeless.
Connell was skeptical of the new business at first, especially with a son who did not like being around strangers. But she said the open, clear communication with staff put her at ease.
“It feels like a family, while still having the structure that younger children need to be successful,” she said.
When her work schedule changed and she needed to bring her son in earlier and more often, Connell said it was never a problem.
When her son started developing hearing and speech issues, the staff accommodated to meet his needs.
“I cannot speak highly enough of the people who work at Foundations,” Connell said.
Connell said that Foundations’ rates are cheaper than any of the other five child care providers that she considered, but costs can still be daunting.
For a family seeking infant care five days a week, the rate is $235 per week, totaling $12,220 annually.
The Women’s Fund’s preliminary research found nearly 30% of parents likely to use the center had an income over $75,000 — too much for a family of four to qualify for publicly-funded child care assistance.
Community crowdfunded child care: Another example in Indiana
The Montgomery County Community Foundation saw that Crawfordsville, Indiana was a child care desert and helped form a child care task force to address the issue in 2019.
The coalition, with the help of supporting businesses, government and nonprofits, surveyed the community’s needs and fundraised $5 million for the creation of a child care center that opened in March. Instead of a nonprofit, Kindercare operates the facility.
The Early Learning Center provides 124 seats, mainly serving infants and toddlers, and aims to provide affordable rates, despite major state funding cuts to child care reimbursement rates for providers.
Ashland isn’t the only community to pool its resources to pay for a new child care center.
The Montgomery County Community Foundation in Crawfordsville, Indiana, addressed child care in a near identical fashion to Ashland’s.
In Mount Vernon, the Salvation Army launched a similar initiative. The Learning Lighthouse will open in 2026.
But the work isn’t over. Scheetz said Foundations must analyze the success in addressing child care needs and continue to adapt to community needs.
Looking to the future, she plans to resurvey Industrial Park business employers and employees to reevaluate child care needs. If the facility needs to expand space or offerings in to address new needs, they will.
