Let’s say you’re a worker and a parent and you do want to commute onto the island to work. What do you do with your child? Can you afford daycare on a place like Hilton Head Island, or do you find somewhere on the mainland and pray that you can beat the bridge traffic every day to pick them up on time?
There may not be any easy answers to the labor crisis, but to this one aspect we can at least steer you toward a solution.
“The thing people don’t realize is that childcare is an economic driver. Right now, we’re in a real employment crunch, but that crunch is made worse when there aren’t enough daycare options,” said Jody Levitt, executive director of The Children’s Center. Established in 1967, the center provides care for up to 200 children, ages six months to eight years. “Right now, we have 50 kids on a waitlist, and that’s 50 people who can’t work on our island. It’s foundational when it comes to economic vitality.”
Of course, when you’re providing childcare for the workers of Hilton Head Island, affordability is key. “The thing that makes us unique is our sliding-scale tuition,” Levitt said. This sliding scale takes in a number of factors, from family size and income to current poverty levels, and creates a way forward for parents struggling to afford childcare. Factor in that The Children’s Center partners with the state of South Carolina to accept tuition vouchers, and you have daycare that’s within reach for parents at any income level.
“There are multiple ways to make it affordable, and our rack rate is probably lower or as low as anyone else in the Lowcountry,” Levitt said. “We work really hard to make it affordable to start with.”
And while making childcare affordable is a part of the mission, delivering a quality pre-school education is the true goal. “We really are an early education center,” Levitt said. “Our goal is that when kids leave here, they’re ready for kindergarten. We don’t want to see children in a situation where they’re just watching TV all day.”
To achieve this, The Children’s Center has spent the last year and a half piloting a revolutionary new developmental measurement tool. Built in conjunction with Dr. Ron Erdi at USCB, this tool creates a database of innumerable points of data, comparing them against state standards and letting each teacher and parent know exactly what kind of progress a child is making.
“We give out reports quarterly, letting parents know what they can do at home and what they can keep an eye on,” Levitt said. “That way parents get to be involved in it just as much as we are. The children’s brains are developing at their fastest right now. If we don’t keep them caught up now, they’re behind for the rest of their lives.”
Of course, it takes a little extra effort to create such a well-rounded educational atmosphere, and it takes a little help to make that exceptional instruction affordable. Through special events, grant writing and individual contributions, The Children’s Center has to raise somewhere near 50 percent of its revenue to sustain itself. “Fortunately, we live in an amazingly generous community,” Levitt said. “We’ve been around for 54 years, so we’re actually the second-oldest non-profit on the island.”
In addition to events like the annual gala to be held in April of next year and the annual Swing for the Future golf outing in Long Cove every September, The Children’s Center recently unveiled its newest (and quite possible cutest) event, the Tot Trot.
“We were looking for a way to reach out to non-traditional donors,” Levitt said. “We thought, why not encourage our kids to enjoy the outdoors, get exercise and we can engage parents and sponsor a classroom to walk around Jarvis Creek Park?”
The event not only saw the cherubic student body at The Children’s Center playing in the sunshine around Jarvis Creek Park, but it helped raise funds that went directly back into the classroom. “We had a goal of $1,500 per classroom. We ended up with $2,250,” Levitt said.
It’s these supporters who have helped keep The Children’s Center molding young minds for 54 years, but it ultimately all comes down to the folks interacting with those young minds every day.
“The passion that I see from these teachers, that’s the key to making it all work—having the right passionate people,” Levitt said. “They’re not just babysitters. They really engage with these kids.”
The result is children who are ready to take on the challenge of kindergarten and parents who can get back to work and help ease the labor crisis.
To learn more, visit thechildrenscentersc.org.
