Finding child care is an ongoing struggle in many South Dakota communities. Watertown almost lost one of its largest child care centers last year. Instead, the city recently celebrated its newest child care center on the same campus hosting assisted living apartments and memory care facilities.
It's all a legacy project by the sisters of the Mother of God Monastery.
The sisters have known for years that their monastery will end with them. Too few women are becoming nuns anymore.
Barbara Younger, or Sister Barb, is the prioress of the Mother of God Monastery.
"From the beginning of the sisters' journey about what to do with our square mile of land, we knew we can't take an acre or a dollar with us," Younger said. "So, we wanted to make sure that we intentionally developed our land in a way that would benefit Watertown well beyond our years."
Elder care leads to child care venture
They began with elder care. The Village of Harmony Hill offers assisted living apartments and memory care unites for the sisters and their neighbors throughout the community. The child care center started as a benefit for the staff of Harmony Hill's elder care services.
Sister Barb thought they'd need capacity for about 40 kids. Then she connected with a pastor whose church ran another daycare in Watertown.
"When Pastor Justin called me in December of 2023 and said, 'We've got to transition this ministry off our campus for various reasons.' He said, 'Can you help us?' I was like, 'Well, how many kids do you have?' 'Well, 125.' I was like, how am I going to explain this to everybody!" Sister Barb remembered.
She's worked on the Codington County child care commission and knows the business is complicated. She also knows the need is great.
A 2024 report from the Codington County Community Services Commissioner showed a county-wide need for 600 child care slots for kids under the age of six. The need is even larger for school-age kids. The report estimates a need for more than 2,000 spots in the next few years.
It's much more than any one facility can manage, but after that call in late 2023, Sister Barb and her team got to work building partnerships to see how they might help.
"There was a point where I didn't know if the funding would work, if we could tie it all together. Because it needed to be the community to solve the problem, not anyone or anybody writing a check," she said.
Less than a year later, the sisters and other partners combined multiple funding sources to bring the child care center to one of the monastery's unused buildings. The new Our Little Village Learning Center has capacity for 225 children.
"Between the city, the county, the state and local entities in Watertown, we were able to put it all together," said Sister Barb. "It's totally a community effort. I led the charge, and sometimes I pushed the charge, but it was the community."
Wider age range could alleviate thin profit margins
The sisters behind the Village of Harmony Hill campus have worked hand-in-hand with Michael Klatt, strategic advisor to the Mother of God monastery. Like Sister Barb, he's well aware of the difficult business of running a child care center. During the open house in June, he said becoming a state-licensed child care facility also allows them to accept families who receive child care assistance.
Klatt adds child care is a community service, not a way to turn a profit.
"Daycare is expensive. If you're going to pay the wages, the liability insurance, the food, the building maintenance, everything—this is not something we should go in thinking, 'Well, we're going to make a lot of money doing this,'" Klatt explained. "This is a program that you've got to be happy if you get a buck or two at the end of the year and say, 'Let's continue doing this, let's continue investing in this.'"
One way the team behind Our Little Village hopes to stay viable is through school-age programming. Angel Oeljenbruns is the Director of Finance for Mother of God Monastery, and she has experience with local before and after-school programs. She said offering care for a range of ages is key to making the state standard staff-to-child ratios work financially.
"If you're going to have babies, then go all the way up through school age," she advised other communities. "Because we know the ratios are very small in the 0-to-2 [age group]. So, it's tough to even cover your overhead in that age group. So as you get into the older kids and especially the school age, that's what's going to start helping you turn the revenue and make it a profitable facility."
Oeljenbruns said the nearby elder care facilities add unique intergenerational programming opportunities. By mid-June, school-aged children at Our Little Village had played Wii bowling with assisted living residents and played with the Tovertafel table in the memory care unit.
"The next thing the school-aged [kids] are going to be talking about is the Dust Bowl, so that brought up conversation from some of the residents remembering. They were four and five years old during the Dust Bowl," said Oeljunbruns. "So a couple of students are going to go back and interview those residents."
Leaving a legacy of care
Growth, change, and commitment to community are fueling these developments at the Village of Harmony Hill campus. Michael Klatt said while most new companies are planning for decades down the line, the sisters of Mother of God are planning with the end of their monastery in mind.
"You know, ten-thousand churches in America are closing every year right now," Klatt said. "There's a lot of lessons to religious denominations and churches to think about. What are you doing in your community? And if you have to close, what kind of legacy do you want to leave in this community?"
As Sister Barb Younger said, their goal is to develop their land in a way that benefits Watertown for years to come.
"So that's the story," she said after the center's ribbon cutting in June. "Here it is."
Our Little Village Learning Center is currently enrolling children from four weeks old to fourth graders.
