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'It's a crisis if you get pregnant in this town'
The people who are changing the future of Albion, Nebraska, say they had no choice.
Parents in Boone County had been pleading for more childcare for years, citing it as the area’s most desperate need, says the cattle rancher.
Area employers had grown frustrated, too, as their workers arrived late, left early, or quit because of childcare problems, the economic development leader says.
If we had done nothing, how could we ever bring in new businesses, asks the lawyer. How could we attract young families to move to Albion, asks the award-winning teacher.
How do you improve a town if there’s no one to care for the kids?
“You don’t find very many projects where you can make an important, long-term impact on the community where you live,” says Jay Wolf, the cattle rancher and lifelong Albion resident. “This is it. This is that project.”
He’s talking about Boone Beginnings, a $4.2 million early childhood center soon to open on the outskirts of town.
Boone Beginnings and similar efforts all over the state—from Nebraska City to North Platte, Pender to the Panhandle, Red Cloud to Columbus and many more—show the growing demand for good early childhood education in Nebraska.
These projects show the huge hurdles that many of these towns must leap – for example, raising millions of dollars with scant government help.
They serve as a flashing sign to Nebraska, a signal that we need to get our act together if we want to do right by all our children.
They illustrate the need for statewide change called for by the Nebraska Early Childhood Workforce Commission. It’s change that could help us properly fund early childhood education; pay teachers better than rock-bottom wages, and end rampant child care shortages. And stories like Albion’s teach us that despite the daunting obstacles—despite the fact we’re far from where we need to be—we can still make things better for our kids.
We can do it, because we must.
“The only conclusion you can come to is that this isn’t a want for this community,” says Jeff Jarecki, an Albion native and lawyer who moved back to town a few years ago with wife, Lindsey, an award-winning teacher, and their children. “It’s an absolute necessity.”
The necessity started to become clear in Albion a few years ago, when the Nebraska Community Foundation held community meetings to talk about what residents envisioned for the future. Childcare was a hot topic every time.
Roughly 80 area children have no available childcare at all, Boone Beginnings’ founders say, a massive shortage in a rural county.
Says Jeff Jarecki: “It’s a crisis if you get pregnant in this town.”
That lack of quality childcare can hurt Albion kids as they grow up, Wolf says.
He brings up Wayne, Nebraska. Wayne was averaging 17 children a year deemed not ready for kindergarten. They built an early childhood center. That number dropped to five.
“Kids who start kindergarten behind are often still behind when they graduate. You have such a hard time catching them up,” Wolf says. “That’s when the light went on for me. I thought, ‘let’s give our kids, all of our kids, a chance.’”
A growing group of allies got to work building a nonprofit early childhood center in Albion.
They have raised more than $3 million, nearly all of it from Boone County.
When it opens, Boone Beginnings will sit next to Albion’s assisted living center. There are plans to co-program activities so the area’s oldest and youngest residents can spend time together.
There are plans to hire a director and assistant director, train staff and keep quality high.
There are still challenges, sticky issues that demand attention at a statewide level. How can a program like Boone Beginnings stay in business without losing money? Can you offer quality early childhood education without bleeding cash?
It isn’t “all butterflies and rainbows,” Lindsey Jarecki says, but she and the other forces behind Boone Beginnings are certain the early childhood center will transform Albion.
It will serve as a recruiting tool to attract and retain young families. It will improve the school readiness of area kids. It will let employees go to work without worrying about childcare. It will thrill employers.
It will give Albion a leg up over other Nebraska communities. It’s a win, the people changing the future of Albion say. It’s a win-win-win-win-win.
“It’s not just moms and teachers. It’s economic development, it’s business owners, it’s ranchers…everyone,” says Lindsey Jarecki.
“People here get it, “Wolf says. “They get it on so many levels. Sometimes it surprises you how much people really get it.”