A Holden day care is constructing a new building that will allow it to accept eight more children.
Little Wanderers day care received a Child Care Infrastructure grant from Maine to help construct the expansion, owner Kaliee Deprey said. She runs an in-house day care and the grant will help her build a new, larger building just for child care.
The town of Holden approved the expansion Tuesday. Deprey said she hopes the expansion will be open in fall 2024 on her Charles Drive property. Her next steps are applying for a building permit and then starting construction.
“Honestly [the approval was] a breath of fresh air,” Deprey said. “There were so many steps I had to go through to get here. I’m just so thrilled when we had that meeting and they all approved it, that you can start going forth with that breaking ground.”
The grant was for around $180,000, half of the building costs, she said.
The expansion at Little Wanderers will open much-needed spaces for local families. There is a lack of child care providers in the state, and around 22 percent of Mainers live in an area where there are more than three children age 5 and younger competing for a single licensed spot, a report from Council for a Strong America and Ready Nation found.
When child care is available, costs can be high, with the average cost for a year of infant care in Maine at nearly $12,000. A married couple with a child spends 11 percent of their income on child care, while a single parent spends 35 percent of their income, according to Child Care Aware.
She currently has 12 children in her day care and the expansion will give her space for 20. She said she’s had a waitlist for a long time and this will help move some people off it.
The day care has stayed full since she opened about four years ago. As the kids have aged, she’s changed her business to continue providing care, so no one has aged out, she said. However that means the in-home day care feels small.
“I really think it’d be amazing for all the kids just to have more room to get into a bigger space,” she said.
The state grant provides funding to people who are either opening or expanding their child care business. A total of $15 million in federal funds was allocated and is administered by Coastal Enterprises, Inc. through a partnership with the state.
