RoseMary's Place child care in Dayton to open April 1

Walla Walla Union-Bulletin - 3/20/2024

Mar. 19—DAYTON — Dayton hasn't had a licensed child care service since 2020 — but all of that will change Monday, April 1, with the opening of RoseMary's Place.

Since the start of the pandemic, child care options in Dayton have been limited, with only a handful of services offering day care. The ones that were available were non-licensed, meaning families could not get financial assistance from the state to help pay for child care.

That is why employees at the YWCA in Walla Walla have spent almost four years working to open RoseMary's Place, with Child Care Coordinator Tabitha Haney leading the project. On Saturday, March 16, RoseMary's Place hosted an open house for community members to explore the new center, which will serve children ages 6 weeks to 6 years old.

"One of the things we really want to make sure we're working on is building a relationship with the school, so our kindergarten kiddos can go right into public school here in Dayton and make that connection," Haney said.

RoseMary's Place, located in a former Booker Rest Home residential facility at 1012 S. Third St., cost about $700,000 to create. That included $413,000 in federal funds that Sen. Maria Cantwell secured for Columbia County Health System to do the necessary renovations.

YWCA spokesperson Jan Dolph said getting the center up and running was especially difficult because of the state's child care reimbursement rate for providers, which she said was $20 less per child in Columbia County compared to Walla Walla County.

"It's not $20 less to offer child care in Dayton," Dolph said. "If anything, it's more (expensive), because it's farther off the main path."

The rest of the funding for RoseMary's Place came in the form of grants and donations from local organizations, including Sherwood Trust, Columbia REA, Wildhorse Foundation, Blue Mountain Community Foundation, Dayton/Columbia County Washington Fund, the Innovia Foundation, the Warren Community Action Fund and the Columbia County Children's Fund.

The YWCA continues to write grants and fundraise for punch list items that haven't been fulfilled yet, such as playground equipment. Dolph said the YWCA is still about $15,000 away from meeting its fundraising goal.

"Most of the families who are served by the center are going to be getting financial assistance from the Working Connections Child Care program," Dolph said. "And it's pretty surprising how liberal that child care fund is. There are families who looked into this, and they've been pleasantly surprised that they qualified."

Dolph said RoseMary's Place also would encourage more families to stay in Dayton and move to the area now that the service is available. The center will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

"Since the pandemic, it seems like everyone's been having a hard time finding the employees they need to fill positions, and that's been true of the hospital," Dolph said. "And there were people at the hospital traveling as far as the Tri-Cities or Walla Walla to get child care for their kids."

Haney said on Saturday that RoseMary's Place has space for 40 children — eight infants, 13 toddlers and 19 preschoolers.

"We currently have 45 families that are still telling us they need care," Haney said. "We expect we will be licensed for 40. We have seven infants on our list who have not been born yet. This is a much-needed service for our community, and we are excited to be the ones to provide it."

The YWCA hopes to add more classroom space to the center in the future to allow for more children.

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