WRITTEN BY JEN LYNDS
For Kaitie Gilmour, the path to entrepreneurship began after she left Massachusetts and made a home in Houlton. For Mackenzie Corriveau, it started while she was still in high school. Their journeys took different turns, but both women found opportunities in Aroostook County and embraced the challenges of building businesses from the ground up.
Gilmour owns Mrs. Kaitie’s Laugh and Learn Academy, a child care center that opened in 2023 at 18 High St. in Houlton. A Massachusetts native, she moved to Aroostook County after graduating from high school. Her parents had arrived a few months earlier.
The academy was not Gilmour’s first child care experience. She started a home-based day care in 2019, then opened the larger facility when someone approached her about it. She also decided to keep the home-based business. Both facilities are fully licensed by the Maine Department of Health for 61 children across two locations.
At the academy, children receive two meals and snacks and engage in a learning curriculum to keep them educated and entertained.
“We base our days off of the Maine Learning Standards and the Infant and Toddler Learning Standards. We keep the children busy all day,” Gilmour said.
Gilmour gained firsthand experience with the cost of childcare, which led her to enter the field.
“I was originally in the healthcare field,” she explained. “But I had three children at the time, and my husband had just graduated college. He got a really great job, and with that job, we could no longer qualify for subsidy. That meant we couldn’t afford childcare.”
She stressed the importance of having reliable, affordable childcare in the area.
“Families cannot work without it,” she said. “Childcare is the workforce behind the workforce. People are physically willing and able to work, but without reliable, affordable childcare, they cannot be in the workforce.”
Mackenzie Corriveau of Wallagrass started her business, Kenzie’s Paradise 4 Paws, at age 16. Her business includes grooming, boarding, and daycare. She said she had always loved animals and had always wanted to open a business. She had been around dogs her whole life, so it felt like a good fit.
“As a first step, I shadowed a local groomer,” she explained. “I thought that I could really do it. I started taking classes online, and another local groomer mentored me. That is how I got started.”
Corriveau said the community gave her a great deal of support, and her client list grew during that first year. She ran the business through high school and while taking college classes. She hired three employees and graduated from the University of Maine at Fort Kent while continuing to learn entrepreneurship. She said each year, though filled with ups and downs, taught her maturity and responsibility.
“There have been times my friends have wanted me to go out, and I have to work,” she said. “Some of the days that I thought were going to be eight-hour days became 12-hour days. Occasionally an employee calls out, and I have to stay late. I have to be responsible and think of the business.”
She doesn’t expect to expand or open a second business in the future.
“I like keeping it small, with a small client list,” she said. “This is the best little venture here.”
Corriveau said that if she could go back in time and tell her 16-year-old self anything, it would be that “everything is going to be okay.”
“In the beginning, I put a lot of pressure on myself,” she recalled. “I would tell myself to relax and enjoy the ride. You don’t have to be perfect.”