Maeghan Swanson walked through a colorful classroom for young children, duly appointed with comfortable decor, educational toys and tiny chairs, with a smile as big as the room.
“This makes my heart happy,” she said, leading a reporter through the newly opened Northern Maine Community College Childcare Center in Presque Isle.
It’s one of two new facilities operated by Avec Community Action, where Swanson serves as education manager. The other is in Easton, a small town about 7 miles from Presque Isle. Both arose because people saw parents struggling to work or attend school as daycare options kept shrinking.
The ventures come as licensing difficulties, staff shortages and high costs have shut down daycare centers across Maine, including two large ones in Aroostook in recent years. Leaders say the centers will not only provide slots for more than 100 children, but will help build a workforce for an industry that struggles to find qualified staff.
“This is really about trying to invest first and foremost in the children and families we serve, and then in our own human [resources], because another challenge in the childcare environment is finding and attracting qualified personnel,” Avec CEO Jason Parent said.
It’s difficult to make center-based childcare work financially, and many centers have closed in the last few years, he said.
When Miss Jordyn’s Child Development Center in Caribou closed in 2023, affecting more than 100 children, some parents feared they’d have to stop working. Last year, Kelly’s Place Learning Center in Presque Isle, which served 74 children, closed because of financial difficulties with late state subsidy payments. Those and other closures left parents floundering.
Avec took inspiration from projects happening across Maine. Parent pointed to the Hight Family Learning Center, housed in the Margaret Chase Smith School in Skowhegan. There, children from 6 weeks to elementary age are housed in a single early childhood education wing. That’s what the agency tried to emulate in Easton, he said.
Together, the two facilities can serve as many as 115 children, with room for up to 49 in Presque and up to 56 in Easton. Each space has three classrooms and about nine staff members.
The Easton partnership launched two years ago, when parents who couldn’t find childcare pleaded with town and Easton School Department officials to help, Town Manager Cheryl Clark said.
Clark and Select Board members approached Avec, then known as Aroostook County Action Program, and asked if the agency would operate a daycare center if the town provided the building. They considered a community-based model like the one in Skowhegan, Clark said.
Months of discussion and planning followed, and the Easton Elementary School childcare center opened in January. Avec funded the entire project, including building modifications, staff and supplies. Despite some difficulties maintaining staff, so far residents are pleased, Clark said.
“The infant-toddler group has been very well received. The after-school program has built up continuously,” she said. “People are wrapping their heads around there being a daycare opportunity in the building, but it seems to be integrating into the school seamlessly.”
The Easton campus includes infant and toddler childcare services, Head Start and Early Head Start programming and a preschool partnership, along with after-school and school-break childcare.
Retired NMCC President Timothy Crowley thought of a campus childcare center about six years ago, said Angela Buck, vice president and dean of academic and student affairs at the college.
“We have had a lot of students who were not able to complete their program of study because they did not have dependable childcare,” Buck said “He also recognized the relationship with our early childhood education program, [asking] how can we make it a more robust opportunity.”
The college announced plans for the center in 2021, and work started in 2023 to renovate a former dormitory.
The approximately $5.2 million project got its biggest boost from a $2.8 million grant from the Rodney and Mary Barton Smith Foundation. Other contributions included $1 million approved by the Maine Legislature, $500,000 each from the NMCC Foundation and the college itself, and $500,000 from the Maine Community College System, along with private donations, according to campus reports.
Construction finished this summer, and the NMCC Childcare Center opened earlier this week.
Services include Head Start, Early Head Start, private pay and subsidized childcare options. The building also houses part of the college’s early childhood education program and the United Way of Aroostook’s Aroostook County Childcare Resource Center, which Swanson directs.
With three classrooms and separate observation rooms, the center will allow students to complete their practicum work on campus so they’ll be ready to enter the workforce upon graduation, Swanson said.
Grand openings are slated at 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, in Presque Isle, and at 3 p.m. that day in Easton. The public will hear from partners, have a chance tour the facilities and enjoy light refreshments.
For Avec, the facilities also carry a wider purpose: to provide a one-stop avenue for support such as nutrition, whole family coaching and other services, Chief Program Officer Megan Barnes said.
‘It’s much larger than simply opening another childcare facility. It’s really not just about creating those additional childcare slots,” she said. “That’s very important, but it’s more about those learning environments that are designed to support overall children’s development, strengthen families and help parents achieve whatever goals they choose.”