TLC moves, ready to open in its new Charles City home next week

Remodeling, relocation will allow child care to almost double its capacity

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Moving everything from TLC: The Learning Center’s former home on North Jackson Street to its newly remodeled space on Fifth Avenue went quickly this week, with everything packed and moved over on Monday and the rest of the week spent putting everything from large pieces of furniture to small toys and office supplies into their proper places.

TLC Director Pam Ost said the fire marshal has been through and the facility has its certificate of occupancy, so everything is set to reopen in the new location next week. The child care has been closed in the week between Christmas and Near Year’s Day to accomplish

the move to its official new address of 201 5th Ave., Suite 2.

They are planning on having “kind of an open house” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 3, for parents to go and see where their children will be going internally, then the staff will have the rest of the day to make sure everything is ready, Ost said.

“Wednesday morning we will start the next decades of TLC: The Learning Center, open Monday through Friday, 6:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the evening,” Ost said.

The child care center will start in its new home in what was part of the Charles City School District’s middle school with its current enrollment of about 90 kids, she said.

“We won’t be soliciting or doing a major campaign for additional children probably until February. We want to get our feet on the ground and make sure that everything is working the way that it needs to be working, and then we can really start reaching out and letting people know that our capacity has gone up to – staff available – up to 179 children,” Ost said.

She said TLC has been looking for additional staff, and has identified “quite a few people” who will be interviewed for positions as early as next week. Others may become more interested now that the center is opening in its new location.

Ost admitted to spending parts of the week “crying quite a bit.”

“They are tears of joy, and I think just the realization that we have been working on this for four years – since the inception of the idea, the vision of what could be – is now what is. That is overwhelming,” she said.

“And I’m tired,” she said, laughing. “My staff is working so, so hard. They are so excited themselves about having new space and new things and just resetting larger rooms for educational centers and just everything. They’re tired, too. So it’s going to be a slow opening. A soft opening. But we’re here and we’re going to be open Wednesday morning at 6:30.”

Ost said that, like in any major move, there have been small things that have been identified as being needed. As the unpacking and resetting have taken place, people have noticed, “Oh, we still need two of those,” or “we need to get three of these,” she said. One example is the small stools that younger students will need to reach the sinks in some restrooms.

“But our staff is so in tune to what we will be that those identifications happened very quickly and now it’s just a matter as getting them to us as quickly as possible,” she said, adding that nothing that’s been identified so far will prevent the child care from opening next Wednesday.

The new kitchen for TLC “is awesome,” Ost said.

“Oh, my goodness, it is huge. It is wonderful,” she said. “Pam Lumley is going to be our cook. She had run a catering service for so many years, and now she’s going to cater to us, which we’re very excited about.”

Asked if there were any major things that needed to be done, Ost said they were “pretty darn close” to being completely finished.

“The thing that we’re waiting on, very honestly right now, is some of our playground equipment that is at the former location. It’s frozen in the ground. We’re hoping with the warmer temperatures that we’ve had the last couple of days that we can get those out and over to the playground,” she said.

“It’s just those kinds of things. As far as anything major internally I think we’ve dealt with each and every obstacle that we found that we might have and got it remedied as quickly as possible,” she said.

“That was the thing, too. The mission and vision of TLC has always been to provide for the health and safety of all the children of the families that come to our center. And so that’s what we’ve wanted to make sure is being recognized and worked on so that when those first kids walk into their new rooms they’re going to be as safe there as they would be at the old location and they’ll just have a lot more room – and the gym right across from their room,” Ost said.

“We have worked very, very hard to make sure that we continue to offer the child care that TLC has done for the last 22 years,” she said.

Ost said she’s been doing year-end reports for the state funding and state grants that the child care has received to support the relocation.

“One of the questions was, ‘What would you say to someone else?’ and I guess the thing that keeps coming to top of mind is never give up. Don’t let somebody tell you you can’t, because when a community comes together like our community has to make this a realization for long-term child care, and to increase and help with the workforce of our community and the surrounding communities and the surrounding areas, we did what we set out to do, and we didn’t let anybody tell us we couldn’t,” she said.

“I think that one thing that TLC wants to make known is that we are thankful for each and every business, community member, industry that has helped us and partnered with us in some fashion on this road to opening. There have been so many people and organizations that have stepped forward to make this a reality.

“We thank them from the bottom our our hearts, because they have made a future for the children of Charles City from the birth through graduation opportunity a reality,” she said.