The Monadnock Community Early Learning Center works to make childcare affordable in the Monadnock Region. Staff photo by Ashley Saari » Buy this Image

Educating children, feeding them good meals, providing day-care and educational programming that’s accommodating to parents working a full-time schedule – these are things that shouldn’t be conditional on your income bracket.

That’s the basic premise of the Monadnock Community Early Learning Center, which provides childcare and after-school programming to about 70 children from across the region. The fee is on a sliding scale based on parents income, and about 70 percent of the families they serve receive assistance in their tuition either from the state or the Early Learning Center itself.

Heather Wilson, whose two youngest children attend the center, said she toured multiple child care facilities after moving to New Hampshire three years ago. She said when she pulled up to Monadnock Early Learning Center, she saw its students in the parking lot, doing an experiment with model volcanoes, and knew she wanted her children to attend.

“They’re really a center that helps our community. I wouldn’t want my kids to go anywhere else. It’s great building blocks and stepping stones from infancy to elementary school and beyond.”

Wilson works at Monadnock Community Hospital, and said she needs childcare that’s allows her to work hours that aren’t always static – if she needs to go in early or stay a half-hour late, the Early Learning Center allows her to do that because of its operating hours, she said.

“The fact that they’re open 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. is a God-send,” Wilson said. “If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have the flexibility I need. There are nights I have to stay late, and be one of the last ones picking up my children, and I know that’s OK.”

“It crosses the socio-economic divide,” said Louise Danforth of Peterborough.

Danforth now serves as the president of the Early Learning Center’s board of directors, but her first interactions with the center were as a parent. Her two daughters, now aged 19 and 21, attended the center.

“I had an infant and a toddler, and there was no other place I could find that would take an infant,” Danforth said. “It was incredibly convenient, but also very comforting for me to know they were in the same place. That was a key factor for me.”

The Monadnock Early Learning Center began 48 years ago, started by a group of Peterborough-area families who were looking to start an affordable day-care facility. The operation moved to its current location on Community Lane in Peterborough in the 1974, and has been in operation there since.

It’s always been one of the goals of the organization to put the care of children before costs. While the center is licensed to serve 96 children, more than it currently serves, said Executive Director Bill Gurney. But with its with its current staff, it’s only able to accept about 70 children, meaning it’s currently at capacity. But parents, particularly those with infants, are eager for a place.

The wait list for the Early Learning Center has been as high as 40 children in 2018. A significant number of those children are infants, which many early childhood centers do not provide for, because of the higher cost of staffing to care for them.

The Early Learning Center has separate classrooms for attendees, based on ages, and the teachers have individualized programs for each age group that provide developmentally appropriate activities for infants through pre-school, and after-school programs for elementary school students.

Each of the teachers employed at the Early Learning Center has a degree in early childhood, but what attracts many parents is the steady, home-like atmosphere, said Director Amie Patterson, whose own children attended the Early Learning Center.

“It really feels like a family,” Patterson said. “There’s definitely a sense of community.”

Partly, she said, that comes from the fact that the teachers at the Early Learning Center tend to find their place with them and stay for the long-term.

“Our turnover rate is very low. People just tend to stay with us for a long time. Kids have the same teachers as their siblings,” Patterson said. “I love the family orientation. Everyone is just one big unit. We listen and we help, and people feel good about that. We try to be a community as much as we can. Community is part of our name.”

Donations to the Monadnock Community Early Learning Center can be mailed to P.O. Box 262 in Peterborough. For more information about the Early Learning Center, to learn how to enroll your child, or for volunteer opportunities, contact the center at 603-532-6021.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.