Like mother, like daughter.
Yolanda Irvin is opening Kingdom of Care Childcare & Preschool Centers on June 7 in Riverview Plaza. Her mother, Gloria Smith, owned and operated Building Blocks Childcare on North Michigan across from Bliss Park from 2005 until she passed away in November 2018.
To follow a step farther, both retired from state employment to launch their second work careers. Gloria worked at MESC, the Michigan Employment Security Commission, while Yolanda was a manager at the downtown Saginaw office of the Michigan Department of Social Services.
But that’s where the similar stories end. Mom began with no child care background in a cramped former print shop, while her daughter is starting in a larger shopping-mall storefront, backed by experience with her mother, joined by her 20-year-old offspring, Kayla Young, who will serve as Kingdom Care’s administrative manager.
“Kayla was always with her grandmother, every summer, every day,” Yolanda notes.
With all of her comparative advantages, she is aiming to put together “the Cadillac of child care” that in many ways functions similar to a school. Highlights include:
- Operations from 5 a.m. to midnight, six days a week.
- An overall learning approach that provides startups in “STEAM Education,” adding arts to the standard STEM quad of science, technology, engineering and math.
- Certified teachers in creative arts, music and physical fitness.
- Separate rooms, each with bathroom facilities, for the three age groups: infant to age 3, pre-K ages 4 and 5, elementary and adolescent ages of 5 to 13.
- A meeting room for parent groups that may organize, similar to a school PTA.
- For general safety’s sake, a resurfaced well-lit parking lot with cameras connected to a big screen in a security area immediately near the front door.
- For covid-19’s safety’s sake, body temperature checks upon entry and abundant hand sanitizers throughout the premises.
- Bilingual education begging at 8 months of age.
Yolanda’s husband, Fred Irvin, owns a mid-Michigan dry cleaning store, American Cleaners in Mount Pleasant, and made time with a pair of handymen friends to perform much-needed hammer-and-saw carpentry tasks. Yolanda and her friends took charge of bright paint on the walls and decorations everywhere, including in the toilet rooms. Playground-type equipment and seating are everywhere, along with book racks and stuffed animals.
Rough times took place. The Irvin couple moved in two summers ago, but faced delays with family matters and especially with the covid epidemic.
Still, Yolanda sees the Riverfront Plaza location as ideal for students at the Delta College downtown campus and Central Michigan University’s medical classes at the Covenant Health Care campus, and also for city residents who are headed for work in the suburbs.
She graduated from Arthur Hill High School in 1998 and comes to the table with a bachelor’s degree in social work from CMU, along with studies toward a master’s in business from Northwood University.
She aims to employ up to 19 people at Kingdom Care.
“We have decided to take everything we have newly developed, and to put it all in one spot,” Yolanda summarizes.
The website is kingdomofcaredaycare.net, and the phone is (989) 401-5747.
