A new child care centre in Goderich should be opening soon, providing the area with over 80 additional daycare spaces.
Sadie Pfeffer, Supervisor for the Early Years Education System (EYES) Child Care Huron, says the space is all ready to open in December, pending final approval from the Ministry of Education.
"We're hoping for the next couple of weeks, hopefully before Christmas," she said. "The Ministry should be able to come within the next week or two and then the licence will come a day or two after that... We're planning to do a big grand opening a couple weeks after we do a soft opening."
Pfeffer said they will have space for 88 kids once they reach full capacity.
"We have one infant room, two toddler and two preschool classrooms," she said. "We are starting with one of each classroom and then as we hire more staff over the next couple of months, we will slowly build to full capacity."
The centre has 15 staff so far, and Pfeffer says they are just looking to find a few more early childhood educators. Having worked in the field since 2019, she noted that the shortage of ECEs is part of the reason there's been a struggle for childcare centres to stay open, despite the overwhelming demand.
"There is a huge need that we have right now, I've had families come in for tours that have been on waitlists for two or three years before any space even became available to them, so it is has been so good to see more child care opportunities coming up," she said.
She said the centre already has a healthy waitlist of its own.
Huron County has also done its part to try and attract more child care options. With a goal of creating an additional 175 spaces by next year, the County provided $300,000 in start-up support to EYES, and Pfeffer says they're also helping with supply costs.
The new centre is located at 321 Suncoast Drive, in the former church and dance studio. Originally scheduled to open in the fall, the renovations ended up being more extensive than they thought, which is what led to delays in the launch.
"They have renovated from top to bottom. They've redone all of the electrical, plumbing, put up new walls, redone the drywall. We've gotten all new furniture in, all new toys as well. It is a completely refreshed space. We have outdoor yards that they put in, everything has been brand-new," said Pfeffer. "They have done such an amazing job, and that is part of why our opening has been so delayed, because of different roadblocks during construction due to it being an older building."
The centre is with the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care agreement, meaning right now the cost is just $22/day with some subsidy spaces available as well.
The EYES centre will be open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday.
