A Team Effort at the Clubhouse Childcare Center
Hey from McIntosh! We are Aaron and Nicole Cook from Erskine, Minnesota, and we own and operate a large Childcare Center in McIntosh, Minnesota. McIntosh is a small rural town in Northwest Minnesota, along the Highway 2 corridor.
Aaron is from Erskine, which is six miles west of McIntosh while Nicole is from McIntosh. We started dating in high school where we both attended and graduated from Win-E-Mac High School. We then both went on to UND, and after graduating and getting married, decided to head back to our hometowns, where Aaron started his public school career at Win-E-Mac.
While attending college, I had worked at a child care center in Grand Forks, which I very much enjoyed, so when we settled into our home in Erskine, I started my childcare career by opening an in-home daycare. Aaron quickly learned that the public school scene was his passion and went back to school for his Masters of Arts Educational Leadership, and then to MSUM for his Superintendent License.
FINDING THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY
On June 12th, The Clubhouse Childcare Center will have been open for two years...but our journey starts far before that! We first began childcare research in 2013, when we realized it was very hard to find an infant spot when we were looking for daycare for our own son. We looked at our first possible location for a childcare center in 2014 in Erskine. After looking into state requirements and becoming more educated in the process, we learned that the spot didn’t have enough square footage. I then decided to open my own home daycare, while continuing to dream bigger and keep looking for the opportunity to open a childcare center.
Time would pass, and other avenues to look into would pop up and then come to another dead end. During that time, my in-home daycare waitlist continued to grow, and the extreme need for more childcare in our rural area grew and became more prevalent. The phrase, “If Plan A doesn’t work, try Plan B” became a not-so-funny joke for us...especially when we realized we were on Plan F! But I was determined and we just kept looking with an open mind. Between 2014 and 2017, we had looked into six different buildings and opportunities before we found The Club Bar and Grill for sale in McIntosh. Right when we walked in the building, I felt “This is it!” — a commercial kitchen, ample space, room for changes, lots of outside space — finally a spot that clicked all the boxes for licensing!
Purchasing the building was the easy part; renovating to meet childcare licensing, fire codes, and zoning regulations along with the enormous amounts of paperwork that had to be approved by the state is where the hard work really began. Bryce at Stordahl Constrution from McIntosh navigated the building aspect, often times making my crazy visions become a reality while following zoning and building codes. It was great to work with local companies like Stordahl Construction, Carlson Electric, Rustad Heating and Plumbing, and Garden Valley Telephone Company. All of these companies have the same small-town values and roots. They are invested in the community, and they believed in us and what we wanted to do.
Turning a bar and grill into a childcare center was a controversial topic for the small community, but we believed in it, and most people quickly agreed with us as the childcare shortage was evident. One of the best compliments we heard at the public open house was from an older gentleman who said while smiling, “I think the kids that come here are going to make great memories like I have from this building.”
TEAMWORK IN BRINGING A DREAM TO REALITY
The Clubhouse Childcare Center opened our doors on June 12, 2018. The center was initially licensed for 8 infants (6 weeks to 15 months), 14 toddlers (16 months to 33 months), 20 preschoolers (34 months to school-aged), and 15 school-aged kids. The summer started out slowly, but it gave the staff time to really decide what they wanted The Clubhouse to be known for: a safe, reliable, fun, loving, and educational place for kids to be kids! Though it was a slow start, the fall of 2018 was the first big boom. After less than a year of being open, there was already a waitlist! I quickly discovered there needed to be some room reconfiguring and relicensing requests to be able to care for more infants and toddlers. We were able to move and expand our infant suite, make a pre-toddler space, and create another preschool classroom; increasing our infant spaces by six and the overall capacity changed to 66 in just two years!
Our teamwork definitely turned Nicole’s dream into a reality. Says Aaron: "Nicole has done a great job with The Clubhouse and I'm very proud of her. The kids are always excited to see and be around her. She has put a really energetic and caring staff in place, and she always has a vision for what’s next. There are many tasks that she takes on being both an owner and a director, and every vision she has turns out amazing!"
“We work really well together; I start with kids birth to school age, and then Aaron sees them through graduation! We really are a team effort. While Aaron might not see the day to day at The Clubhouse, he is my partner in every sense of the word. His knowledge for business and endless support for me and my dream is what helps keep us moving forward,” says Nicole.
The Clubhouse Childcare Center serves a 45-mile radius in all directions, making this centralized location a busy hub for this little town. By creating 66 childcare spots in the area, a large number of employment positions were also created. There are 10-12 staff at The Clubhouse at any given time, creating 14 full-time positions and 10 part-time positions. Staffing ratios and requirements are very strict for the safety and educational growth of the kids, so finding qualified staff with big hearts is often a challenge but when we do find great staff, they become family.
The community has come accustomed to see our different “parades” around town. Some of our favorites are our 4th of July Parade, Christmas Caroling, and May Day Basket delivering. It’s very heartwarming to see different community members and business owners add to our festive actives - the more the merrier! It is very hard to see a group of kids smiling and not smile yourself - it fills my cup seeing all the smiles the kids spread around town just by being kids. It’s very common to see one of our groups of kids out for a walk around town or up to the library, and they love getting truck honks if you see us!
The Clubhouse is a true family effort - the kids see how hard we work, how much we care about all The Clubhouse kids, staff and families, and how we are constantly trying to better our program. We currently live in Erskine with our three sons: Brody (7), Kolby (5), and Sawyer (3). Raising a family in this community is everything we’ve ever wanted and envisioned for our family. Our neighbors know our kids, and our kids are proud of our neighbors. Having our kids grow up in a tight-knit and supportive community is exactly how we want to see them shaped, so they want the same for their own families when they are older.
Find out more about the rural revival happening in McIntosh, Minnesota here:
EPISODE 93 // ANDREA STORDAHL OF MINNESOTA RUST
WELCOME TO MCINTOSH, MINNESOTA
LOVING THE PROCESS AT HOWARD SOAP CO.
BUILDING DREAMS AT SUGARBROOKE CREATIVE
Check back this week for more!