Charitable non-profit assists troubled day care center

By Vinay Bhagat vinay@theheraldnewspapers.com Last Thursday, community leaders from the non-profit organization Cherish the Child Foundation met with representatives of the Smoky Mountain Children’s Home to offer financial assistance that would allow the embattled day care center to remain open until December 2006. Just For Kids, which was initially slated to be closed on November 1, 2006, will benefit from an extension of its operations for two primary reasons: first, to help children that attend Just For Kids day care center to relocate other local day care centers, and second, to alleviate some of the stress that the staff of twenty-six employees at Just For Kids must be experiencing as they face imminent layoffs near Christmas Holidays. As the controversy behind the closing of Just For Kids continues to linger, certain facts have recently come to light regarding the day care center’s financial difficulties. In a letter distributed from Superintendent Larry Pemberton to Just For Kids customers and staff on October 2, Pemberton cited changing priorities as a primary reason for the shut-down of the day-care facility, specifically stating that the center must focus its attention on taking care of children from broken homes or children with psychological problems. Now, it has been discovered through a press release from the Smoky Mountain Children’s Home that a Tennessee class-action lawsuit has eliminated funding that day care facilities normally receive for taking care of children “Level I Children,” which are essentially, well-adjusted children simply requiring basic day care services. In other words, the strain of statewide legal proceedings may have adversely affected the Just For Kids business model, which relied heavily on providing services for Level I children. According to the release, in part, “The day care was opened some seven years ago and in the past has enjoyed the freedom of financial underwriting by the Smoky Mountain Children’s Home. However, in recent past orphanages all across the State of Tennessee were financially impacted by a class action lawsuit. Though strong community support and an emerging foster care program, we were able to survive but not without great financial challenges that now necessitate the closure of our day care.” With the help from the Cherish the Child Foundation the day care will now stay open until December 22, 2006. The release also stated, “We sincerely appreciate Earlene Nations and her staff in helping to make this extension possible. We are also grateful to Saye Boyen and her staff from ‘Evergreen Learning Center’ who recently informed us of their new day care facility expansion October 31, 2006 and their willingness to assist with childcare placement. This is a tremendous statement of community and church cooperation.” Now the parents and the employees of the day care facility are being afforded another month and a half to adjust to the shut-down of the facility. Thanks to the charitable nature of the Cherish for Children Foundation, Just for Kids staff, as well as the children that attend the day care center, will have a much easier transition as they venture to find an alternative day care center.