49 | Attention Parents - This Woman is Working to Solve Your Biggest Problem - Child Care

What is the biggest problem facing working parents today, especially women? Ding! Ding! If you guessed affordable childcare, you are correct. It's no surprise that America is lacking in both its childcare availability and affordability. The system has many flaws....but drum roll please, there is hope! 

That hope is Angel Berry, the co-founder of A Million Dreamz, an innovative daycare center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The daycare offers flexible scheduling, including potential 24/7 operations, and only charges for the hours that children are in care. This model aims to meet the needs of working families by providing affordable and accessible childcare.  Tune in as we discuss the challenges of finding suitable childcare, how A Million Dreamz is trying to solve this problem through its innovative approach, and why childcare is not just a problem parents face but one the whole community needs to address.

Connect with Angel Berry and A Million Dreamz:

• Website = https://amilliondreamz.org/
• Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/amilliondreamzinc/

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Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of You betcha she did. I'm your host Rayna Rokicki. In our July episode today, I am very, very excited about our guests. She is my newest, latest, greatest hero for all parents everywhere. I think after you hear the episode, you're gonna feel the exact same way. My guest today is Angel Berry, co founder of the daycare, a million dreams. And before you start to shift your mind to what daycare means, I want you to wipe that slate clean. What angel Berry has in mind for a million dreams is very different from the daycare that you and I maybe grew up going to or we're used to as parents. If you are a parent to be you're definitely going to want to listen in Angel Barry is revolutionizing the way we look at daycare, and for all the right reasons. She is looking at childcare as a service to families she is looking at providing daycare 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is exactly what families need not only to help them secure the jobs that they want, but to help them secure their economic future. I hope you're going to be as excited as I am. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Did she really do this? You betcha she did. 

01:34 

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of You betcha she did where Wisconsin entrepreneurs changemakers and women leaders come to share their Wit and Wisdom. I'm your host Rayna Rokicki. Today, I'm honored to have Angel berry here she is one of the cofounders of a million dreams and innovative daycare childcare center in Sheboygan. Now you might have heard some of the hubbub about this daycare childcare place. It's not your usual daycare, and it is exactly what working parents need. So Angel, welcome to the show. 

02:05 

Thank you for having me. 

02:07 

Yeah, I'm so glad you're here. So

02:08 

let's start off, you know, just explaining what a million dreams is in terms of childcare and how it's different from what we might normally think of. Yeah, so we're doing things a little bit differently over 2 million dreams. In regards to early childhood education. The system that was set up in the 70s is still the general system that's used today. But we've learned so much more about brain development in quality early childhood education, that it really needs a big change. So what a million dreams, we have kind of flipped the script. And we look at it as a service to families, rather than a business model for a capitalist kind of situation. So as a nonprofit, we just look at what services the families need, how we can offer those, and then it's my job to figure out the money on the other end. So some of the things that we do differently. Start with our scheduling, we are working towards being open 24/7 365, we will be the first of the state to do that. And it's really about meeting families where they're at and what their needs are as far as their hours. In addition to that, there are flexible modules, and you only pay for when your child is important. So instead of having flat rates, full time or part time, and if you only need four hours on a Wednesday afternoon, you're paying for 20 We don't do that we literally only charge for when your family is there. 

03:37 

Wow, that is amazing. For real for that is crazy, because I have two kiddos. And at one point, I was looking at childcare and it was very inflexible to what I needed. And it's not their fault. It's just kind of the way the system was set up. But to be able to have like, yeah, you're like, I just 

need four hours on Wednesday night. So I can go to this class, or I have this training to do. And I only need to pay for that. I mean, that's awesome. That is exactly what families need. And you know, it's like, we don't have anything like that. And it's I mean, when you think about it, it's kind of amazing, like how come we don't have childcare like this. So I'm so glad you and your co founder are working to make this a reality. Where did you come up with the idea like were you inspired by another childcare place or this is something like that is personal to you and you're like we need to solve this problem. 

04:24 

I've always wanted to do childcare ever since I was about 12 years old. And I you know, I've kind of come back to it and walked away from it for numerous reasons throughout my life. But over 20 years ago, I found myself a divorced single mom. And I want two kids when finding childcare was a real struggle. And so trying to balance going to school to better our family and working at the same time I found myself in a situation that many families find themselves where I couldn't find accessible childcare. My oldest son is on the left Autism spectrum. So it was really challenging to find a childcare location that would care for him. And then work around my schedule. And so I was very, very fortunate, because I had a wonderful woman who ironically came into my life and stuck around and helped me with my kids. And so I ended up with this extremely affordable nanny, who just kind of moved in and loved on us, and helped me make it through those years. That's not a reality for most anybody. And so meeting the needs of families, like mine, is always something that even the nanny Rosie and I talked about many years ago, about how there's no nighttime cleaner and affordable for families and for moms. So fast forward, and I did childcare in my house for 10 years. And so I did all of these things, already on a smaller scale, with flexible schedules, and just paying for the times that

you were there and working with all of those, but I'm only one person, so I couldn't, it couldn't possibly meet all the needs. My co founder, none of us was a client, and then a friend. And she said, Well, I've got I've got some dreams, and you've got some dreams. And I think we'll go really well together. So let's 

06:26 

do this. Let's make this happen. Let's make this a reality. 

06:30 

Absolutely. So the two of us put it all together. We work with it our nonprofit in 2019, we had a bit of a false start on separate building and a separate plan that didn't work out. And we started over with the former Sheboygan Christian School on the north side and finally opened March 1 of this year. 

06:51 

Well, congratulations. I know. I mean, not only was it your dream, but it's, it's so many mothers and fathers dreams to have this option of a flexible, affordable childcare. And that also caters to kids with special needs to because like you said, if you have a child who has some different circumstances, it can be really challenging to find care in a care that's affordable. And at the same time, you need to be able to work to pay bills to make things happen. And if you you know, childcare is that obstacle in the way that that doesn't make it easier. You know, it's like, throughout the pandemic, I was just listening to news story over news story, all about how, you know, mothers were leaving the workforce because, you know, kids weren't in school because of COVID. Or else, you know, people weren't, had to work from home and whatnot. And childcare was such a huge issue. And so often people had to leave their jobs in order to take care of the children. And people are returning to work, which is good. But there is a there is a lack of childcare. I mean, it's been in the news over and over again, there's not enough childcare, it's not affordable enough. I was just doing a little research before we started talking. And it talked about how the cost of childcare can run from 8% to 19% of a family's income. And that's, that's a huge chunk 10s If you're, you know where you're located, if it's a big city, small city, but you know, it can be up to $17,000 a year. I mean, that is not a lot of people have that much money. So this is a big, big step forward and a big relief for a lot of people. What's been the reception so far have a lot of people jumped on board. Are you guys full already? 

08:28 

It has been great. We have gotten a lot of support, particularly from families who understand this. We, like I said, we opened on March 1, and we included with our first four classrooms. Our building is still in construction. So we're actually opening a second section, a wonderful month. Well, congratulations. Thank you, that'll bring three more classrooms. And eventually we'll have 12 classrooms. And so we are pretty cool. We have a little bit more staff than we need. And we are still hiring because we're expanding. So that hasn't gone the big places that we thought it

would be hiring additional staff and we actually still have 328 children on our waitlist today. The kids are there they are definitely in need of somewhere to go. I don't think we're going to run out of children that are going to need more for time. 

09:23 

I don't think so either. I know you're you're solving a lot of people's problem a big problem. 

09:29 

Yeah. The the affordability that you talked about. I'd love to know where you get that got that stat. I know that the program with the state of Washington called Wisconsin shares that helps share the cost of childcare for low income families. They maintain the class at about 20% or just below 20% of a family's income. But that only goes up to 100% of federal poverty level. So it's not enough for anybody who has To access to benefits from the state, you will be familiar with the term the benefit cliff. And this is where you suddenly get a raise 10 cents an hour or 25 cents more, and you make too much money and you fall off this benefit class. And suddenly you get nothing. And so a family with a couple of kids, maybe paying $3 $4 An hour one, maybe they're paying 14 for the two kids, because they got a 10 foot race. It's, it's tragic and terrifying for families that are on benefits, to attempt to do better. And I live when my kids were little, I actually took a job at one point in time while I was in college, and I said, I would love to take this job, but you're going to need $2 less than I couldn't afford to lose my benefits. Do you know, 

10:53 

is there any, I don't know like legislation in the works or attempts to make legislation to bridge that gap, you know, where it's like you either get benefits. Or if you just make over that. Like there should be another step within that like, Okay, you get paid a little more, but you still get benefits, but maybe a little less instead of like now there's no benefits. Good luck. 

11:11 

Well, I absolutely agree with you. There isn't anything in legislature that I'm aware of that's addressing was one of the cliff, but in a million dreams we are, we have a great program. And it is intended for families that cannot access Wisconsin sharing his pupils, they make a little bit too much money. And so we pick up with the same algorithm, we keep it at about or just below 20% of your income. So it's not really, really cheap childcare. But it's affordable. And we pick up up to an over 1% of the federal poverty level. And we go all the way up to 675%. And so we are building the bridge towards financial independence that the student hasn't built yet. So far, we have a family on there a single mom with three kids who took her part time job and turn it into a full time job and she worked overtime. And so they are getting out of the kind of the the bubble of poverty that they were stuck in their family that was able to take a managerial position that she'd had to turn down before, because occasionally she had to work extra hours.

And that wasn't available for her childcare. It's neat to see people already in just the short three months want to take advantage of that program to work to better their family, and get off of all of that state help, which really helps everybody their family, the economy, the tax base, 

12:42 

exactly the family's economic future, too, because it's so they can start earning more money over the years, it just grows exponentially or adds up, you know, into your retirement or whatever benefits you might have. But it's like the sooner you can do that. Because you have access to childcare, the better off you're going to be later on. And I think that's man, I'm so glad you're bringing this up. Because these are the issues that maybe aren't talked about enough. And that really holds especially women back from earning what they could be earning, you know, because they do make sacrifices for their family. 

13:14 

Absolutely. I continue to talk with people and I, when you brought up earlier, the pandemic, bringing the child care crisis to the forefront, I continue to ask people to keep talking about it. Because it wasn't new with COVID. And it hasn't gone away. And what really what we're seeing is a lot of support for early childhood education, in the fact that people say this is needed. But nobody's really doing anything about it. And the people who have their fingers in the industry are still working with band and it's there. It's a very broken system. And it's what's not working. So I really think what it needs to be dramatically different from what it has been for the past four years. And we need to turn it into something that as a community, we can all get behind and support because it is a community issue. Even if you don't have children, the person next to you at work, who can't make it half the time that affects you, you know, so it's definitely a community issue that we all need to get behind. 

14:20 

Yeah, I love how you stated that because it's it's I don't know, 100% Correct. It does it does affect everyone, and affects Yeah, the people you're working with. When you go to a store and you need services or a shop or getting your car repaired, it's like, well, they might not be able to work because they don't have the child care. They're dealing with an issue right now. So in order to make our society function it to get people out of poverty, and so trying to keep them in there by punishing them. It's like we need to do this. We need to have childcare that solves those issues. Are you working with any other childcare centers like throughout Wisconsin or the US to kind of push I know, I can only imagine that your hand So we're extremely busy right now. And you're probably a little overwhelmed. But I'm just so excited about this idea that I was like, oh, we need you to keep talking to, you know, more people in other centers so we can get this idea going, you know? 

15:12 

Yes, I agree. And the short answer to your question was not yet. You know, we have these ideas, and we are flushing them out. And we're working with them. And really kind of solidifying how that works on a grander scale. Obviously, I've done a lot of these things in my home, but

how that works on a grander scale. Obviously, I've done a lot of these things in my home, but that was, you know, a handful of families. And so we are working towards making everything that we do duplicatable, because it's not about a million dreams being the, you know, the best place and the only place we want to be the best place, but then we want to share that with everybody. And so a lot of the things that we're doing is intended to grow and expand and include more and more as we grow. I'm hoping that I will be called in to consult to help other people do some of these things someday. And we're starting local, because that's, that's me, we're starting off. And so as we're expanding, one of the things that we're doing is everything that we can to get people to give us industrial trouble. When you when you talk about teachers in early childhood education, the one thing that they will say, time and time again, as the most aggravating part of her job is that they're not babysitters. And so there's still this huge misunderstanding that the people working with your children, your most precious things in life, are just walking them through the day. But in an Early Childhood Education Center, like a million dreams, and like most of them out there, there are proposals, we have teachers with master's degrees, and we have teachers that are working part time by us that teach in the school districts. And it's about the education that you get, even when you're six months old. I mean, that's really important. And the more we learn about brain development, the more we know, not giving children quality early childhood education before they're six years old, is the most important part of brain development. I used this example, often, I learned something in a class and I called my mom and I thanked her for rolling her tongue at me when I was a child and making that sound. Because I'm able to roll my arse or I was learn to speak Spanish fluently if I were good at picking up languages, which are not. But a lot of people can't do that. And it's something that is because they were or were not exposed to it before they were six. So you can't learn it in high school if you didn't have that that's bound. And a million dreams we have different languages we have storytime was different language and was my, my co founder is actually from Croatia. And so her children are all bilingual, excuse me bilingual. So that's really exciting because we get to have that exchange of different sounds and languages. And that will help and I completely digressed. 

18:21 

No, I love it though, just like things. It's true. A lot of people underestimate the value of early childhood interactions, how you need interact with babies and toddlers, and there's so much science behind it. And the people who do watch your kids are professionals, like you said, they've been trained, they have countless hours, they gotta keep getting training. And they probably know more, more than the parents do, right in terms of like, what's developmentally appropriate, and what should we be working on at this stage. And as a society, we definitely need to value that more. Speaking of a million dreams, is there anything from the community that you might need in terms of support or resources or supplies? What we are 

19:03 

very grateful for our supporters. We actually just had one of the deep dive groups at the Chamber of Commerce, had done some donation boxes around town and they just got delivered yesterday. So that was really a clothing, toys and meals for babies and blankets and bubbles and office supplies. So those are always welcome. We are getting all of our wipes from Rockline. So I really appreciate that because that's something we don't have to have the full length to bring in. And it's not an additional cost for us. We are working with baby to baby out of California. And so we are able to supply all the diapers that our families need while they're in

care, which is a huge expense. So we're super grateful for the watch. What I most need from the community right now is playing ample support. And that's for our capital camp. meeting as a business, we're going to be okay. We have programs that we will continue to look for funding in the future as we expand them, obviously. But our capital campaign to finish our construction is still in need of almost a million dollars. And so I need those corporations that we get to send people noon for jobs off shift and weekends. We're helping well, we'll get employees, we need them to help us and have enough space to meet the needs of those 328 children on our way. 

20:34 

Is there information about the capital campaign on your website? Because I'm just thinking of things I can link in the show notes for people? 

20:40 

Absolutely. There's a whole page on the Capital One goal. 

20:43 

Okay. So yeah, I will definitely have that in the show notes for people to access. So please consider donating or talking to, if you work at a business that's larger or small. I mean, that's something you can definitely bring up especially you if you don't have kids, you know, what's going to help the community out 

20:59 

insurance. I think they grasp that I wanted to come back to a point that I was making about professionalism and education. So we're doing several things to bring people into the industry. We are the first in the area to offer Eazy E apprenticeships through LPC. So working with Lakeshore Technical College and their early childhood education department, along with the Department of Workforce Development, we now have the ability to offer apprenticeships where you can get paid to go to school, and have a job and you learn on the job while you're learning. That's cool. And getting into this industry. We also do everything that we want to offer those startup classes on the background check. We have a local law firm that is on hold and those background check for us. And also included and Gunderson. It's hard to remember. So we can we can get people into this industry, if it's something that you think you might want to try without having a big financial output. And then as we expand and as we grow, we're gonna offer continuing education for our staff to bring it's required legally. But the more education means better quality of care. And so once we get there, we want to invite everybody else's employees in the county to come and get that education for free as well. Because that means federal education better care for everybody in the county, regardless of which center you choose to go to. 

22:30 

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's fantastic. We already know you have a waiting list. But if families are

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's fantastic. We already know you have a waiting list. But if families are interested in getting on that waiting list or joining at some point in the future, what steps should they take? 

22:42 

Absolutely easiest way to get on the wavelengths is on our website, at a million dreams.or. On there, you can fill out the information when we need to add you to the waitlist, there's no fee to do that you're going to have all the waitlist at any time. And when we get to your name, then we will give you a call and start the enrollment process. 

23:04 

But it sounds really easy. You know, it's like there's no reason not to get on that waitlist, especially if you are in need of childcare at a million dreams. It's it goes from ages zero to is it 17 years of age, right? 

23:17 

That is 17. And we are the only licensed silver in the state that comes up to 17. Prior to that the oldest I believe is 14. The reason that we do that is because we are 100%. And so we try to meet the needs of every child, regardless of a disability or challenging behavior. My oldest one, like I said earlier is autism spectrum, co founders, all this, but also on the autism spectrum. So we really understand the challenge when you have kids with differing abilities to find quality care. And so we have set up a million dreams to be accessible. We're currently right now building for the front door, and then bringing a space inside that's inclusive, so that each child regardless of a disability or a challenging behavior gets will have access to the same quality care as everybody else. Which just makes sense. And so we do we hire additional staff to support that, again, a program that will probably meet need funding. But right now we're, we're honing in on it, but we do have about 30% of our sales right now have some level of extra need. And that can go anywhere from a food allergy up to a severe disability. So we're really happy to be able to have those boys come to the center as well. 

24:44 

I mean, everybody's happy about that. Especially the parents, holy cow. opens a lot of doors. It sure does. Is there anything else you'd like to mention or promote before before we go today? 

24:59 

Yeah, I would I would just say keep talking about early childhood education. Keep talking about potential solutions. And a million dreams we don't have all of the solutions are still not paying their staff enough. Nobody is. And they definitely deserve more. But keep the conversation

going talk to people who are in positions to make a difference. Whether it's your teacher for your two year old, all the way up to the governor, we get in on this conversation. And people going don't let it die. Because it's not solved yet. 

25:35 

No, yeah, it's it's a long way from being sold. This is a really good step in the right direction. But I agreed the problem is not not going to go away anytime soon. And the more we talked about it, the closer we're gonna get. Absolutely. So Angel, thank you again for being on the show. Thank you for pushing our way forward in the right direction for childcare and supporting families because this is exactly what we need. I guess I mentioned earlier if you want to get in touch with Angel and learn more about a million dreams childcare, please check the show notes. I'll have all of the relevant links there. As always, if you liked the show, if you like what you're hearing, please share it. Please do not get hold this episode. If you know someone who has a childcare issue that needs to be solved, please send them this episode. Until next time, take care. 

26:46 

And now a quick word from our sponsor. Besides being the host of You betcha she did. I am also the brains behind the ladies first digital media company, which amplifies women's voices through podcasts and YouTube channels. If you are a woman, business owner, a coach or a thought leader, you should seriously consider starting a podcast or YouTube channel to grow your business. This is a surefire way to find and grow your niche audience and there's no time like the present to get started. As an experienced YouTube and Podcast Producer, I can help you launch your show. Manage it as well as help you grow it through proven strategies. If you want to know more set up a 15 minute discovery call with me Rayna Rokicki check the show notes for the link or visit my website at WWW dot ladies first digital media.com Now's the time to get your voice out there.