New Child Care Center Forming

Just a week after news broke that Zion Early Childhood Education center in West Jacksonport will close later this month, another group announced it hopes to open a new center by summer of 2024. 

Sevastopol resident Kayla Lehman said discussions are progressing quickly on the Children First Development Center. Lehman said she is pursuing the project with Lorie Torbeck, and hopes to secure a facility within a month. 

Torbeck has spent her career in early childhood development, including experience in Appleton and at the Door Community Child Development Center (DCCDC), which will open its new, expanded facility just north of Sturgeon Bay next month. Lehman brings a business background to the pairing. 

“We’re looking at a couple of possible facilities in the Sturgeon Bay area that could easily be used for child care,” Lehman said. “We hope to know more before the end of the month.”

Lehman said she is forming a board and working toward nonprofit status, but is partnering with United Way as a fiscal sponsor until that is secured. The project is not a response to the Zion closure, but the potential for what Lehman hopes to be able to serve more than 70 children is welcome news given the long waitlist to get into the DCCDC and the loss of Zion, which served 60 children. 

“We’ve been working on this for the past three months,” Lehman said. “We would serve children aged six weeks to four years in child-lead learning.”

Lehman said she has spoken with several community members interested in working at the center, and has investigated opportunities to entice more workers through grants and apprenticeship programs

She does not see the facility as competition for DCCDC. 

“This is filling a void,” she said. “Some people will view it as competition in terms of staffing resources, but there’s more than enough children needing care, and we’re not looking to poach other people’s workers.”For more information on the project, email [email protected].