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closeA commitment to children
The Puyallup Playcare Center has been enriching the lives of local children for 40 years and counting
Chris Albert
Forty years ago, there was a group of volunteers in the Puyallup Valley who saw a need for a place where children could play and learn while their parents were working.
The volunteers would pick-up children of migrant workers in Puyallup fields and provide what was innovative at the time, but is standard today — day care.
“They (the children) could have an enriching day while their parents were in the fields,” said Nancy Handy, executive director of Puyallup Playcare.
What began as a service to the community for a few has provided day care for thousands throughout the years.
“It’s evolved into basically a fully licensed childcare provider,” Handy said.
For the school year there are normally more than 100 children enrolled at the center and more than 80 during the summer. What started with a few volunteers now includes 22 staff members, as well as numerous volunteers, all funded through enrollment dollars and service organizations.
But there are a few things that have stayed constant. For one, the day care center has always been located at Puyallup United Methodist Church.
“That’s a lot of wear and tear on their building,” Handy said. “They are awesome.”
But even more than location, the organization has stayed true to the idea of service by operating as a non-profit child care provider since its inception. That has enabled them to provide a sliding pay scale for child care services.
“I think that’s what’s the most unique about Puyallup Playcare,” Handy said. (Without it) some of these kid’s just wouldn’t be able to in this program.”
The community’s support has played a big part in keeping the non-profit going. They receive funding from the United Way, DSHA, various grants and contributions from Puyallup Tribe of Indians.
The Puyallup Kiwanis club has always stepped up when there is a need, she said.
“They are what makes us what we are,” Handy said.
With that kind of support, the idea of becoming for-profit has never entered the framework of the board of directors at the center.
The board is comprised of educators, parents and local business members who value above all an experience that enriches a child’s development. That commitment is mirrored in the programs offered at the Puyallup Playcare Center.
The programs the center provides are aimed at providing social and emotional growth for children preschool age to 12 years old. Everything is geared toward developing children’s emotional and social responses to situations to be ready to intact appropriately with their peers and adults.
Without those skills getting through school and life in general can be difficult, Handy said.
“Because if they aren’t ready to do that when they are ready to go to school they won’t be ready to learn as much as they normally could,” she said.
The children learn those social skills through games, crafts, field trips and learning opportunities.
When the center plans a trip out into the community to local businesses like JC’s Music Shop, T-4-2 or Trackside Pizza, they make it a fun and memorable trip for the children, Handy said.
Nutrition is also taken into consideration. They have seen an increase in childhood obesity and while outdoor activities help, balanced meals also assist.
Every meal is USDA approved to provide a balanced serving for each child, Handy said.
It’s balance between play and education that has several of the children continuing in the program from pre-school through grade school.
The program has been around for so long that some of the children who attended have grown up and now have their own children enrolled.
The great memories that Adrienne Caufield has of the place when she was a child and how pleased her own parents were with the programs is why Caufield enrolled her daughter, Alexa, 4, at the child care center.
“They’re so caring, I know my daughter just adores her teachers,” she said. “Every day she comes home with paint on her shirt so I know she’s played and done something fun all day.”
Caufield’s son, who is an infant, will go there too.
“I already got him on the waiting list,” she said.
What Caufield likes the best about Playcare is that it isn’t just a day care, but a place that children prepare for the social skills they’ll need when they go to school.
“The kids really start to take care of each other,” she said. “They just seem to really have a good time.”
“I think socially she’s going to be 100 percent ready. I think she’s going to be ready academically as well.”
Every year the child care center hears about second generation students, Handy said.
It usually happens four or five times a year, she said.
“They always say it smells the same,” Handy said. “I think that’s a good thing.”
What Caufield remembers about her time at Playcare is putting on performances for parents and classmates.
“It’s a great spot I never thought of anywhere else I would take my daughter,” she said. “I said, ‘When she’s two-and-a-half that’s where she’s going.’”
Top quality care is why parents enroll their children and why they retain so many throughout the years, Handy said.
“If parents aren’t comfortable with where their children are they wouldn’t stay,” she said. “They (the children) just feel homey or comfortable here and that’s what’s most important.”
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Puyallup Playcare Center
To contact the Puyallup Playcare Center about enrolling, donating or for more information, call 253-848-4232 or e-mail nancyhandy@qwestoffice.net.