EXCERPT FROM: MLive.com
By Michael Wayland
HAMPTON TWP. — When parents are at work, day care is often their first option for watching over young children.
In Bay County’s Hampton Township, a new nonprofit day care hopes to help parents with their children’s development as well.
Bay City resident Aaron Lewis opened Wee Wisdom Learning Center in June at 1145 W. Center.
“We wanted to open it in a way that we could operate it as cheaply as possible, so nonprofit was kind of the way to go with that,” said the 27-year-old Lewis. “It helps us keep our costs low and we can also get things donated from people to help cut the cost and offer them a write-off.”
Wee Wisdom Learning Center is in the former First Baptist Academy, which is connected to the First Baptist Church of Bay City.
Lewis said the learning center operates separately from the church as a tenant, but shares its status and insurance.
“We fall under their insurance, but it’s being run like a business,” Lewis said.
The facility operated as a learning center after the Baptist academy closed about six years ago. It has a gymnasium, hall of lockers, surveillance system and separate rooms for infants, play and studying.
Lewis said the main goal of the learning center is to become a “school of readiness.”
“I’m big on the learn-through-play aspect of things,” Lewis said. “Learning through every different aspect of things.”
Emily Tamez, an employee at the learning center, went to school at the facility when it was an academy. She said it is a great idea to reopen the facility as a nonprofit.
“I just loved it so much and this gave me the opportunity to come back,” said the 18-year-old from Essexville, who is working toward a teaching degree. “I’ve been here ever since I was little and I tell (the children) all my memories.”
The Rev. Kim Lewis, pastor of the First Baptist Church and Aaron Lewis’ father, said it is wonderful that the facility is being used again to educate future generations.
“It’s a great thing,” he said. “Our own people built that years ago.”
Five children are currently enrolled in the program, according to Lewis, who hopes to expand the learning center in the coming months.
Infant/toddler care up to two and a half years old is $145 a week; preschool/child up to five years old is $112 a week; and summer day care for children 5-13 years old is $2 an hour with a minimum of two hours a day.
Lewis said the rates are competitive to that of the Bay Area Family Y, which also operates a nonprofit day care.