Search for stage leads to childcare business

SANDPOINT - She has a green mop of curly hair, and oversized bonnet and a pair of Mary Janes you could use for hauling water by the gallon. But until last month, Miss Sunshine the clown had no place to perform for kids.

Her alter ego, Bren Hamilton, had been using the City Forum as the venue for larger birthday parties and children's activities. When that public gathering spot was converted to professional offices and a restaurant, she plopped down with pad and pencil to sketch out her dream performance setting.

Huge open space for kids to romp? Check. Raised stage for clowning around and presenting family-centered plays and concerts? Check. How to pay for it all? Hmmm.

Hamilton's pencil lifted only momentarily from the page before she was once again drawing happily away, adding a border around Miss Sunshine's proposed domain. Since the clown was all about kids, she figured, why not create a support structure based on the same audience? She dreamed big and drew bigger, creating a series of classrooms that hugged the entertainment area at the core of the building.

"That's how it started," said Bren Hamilton, co-owner of the recently completed 12,000-square-foot Sunshine Center. "I had no place to perform and I was wondering 'How do you finance a place large enough to hold birthday parties?'

"I wanted a venue and there was a need for child care in the community, so we put the two together."

    The center might have started out as a showcase for Miss Sunshine's antics, but it was Bren Hamilton and her husband, Dave, who developed the plans for what turned out to be a $1.5 million childcare facility. Before she met and married Dave, Bren was a young, widowed mother of three putting herself through nursing school on

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a single-parent income. She never forgot the demanding schedule required of working parents. Those memories helped shape the programs at the couple's new business, as well as the layout for the building.

    They streamlined the hectic morning drop-off process by installing a touch screen that allows parents to enter their personal code and open a secure door that leads from the foyer to the classroom area. An espresso counter at the same entry gives them the option of placing a beverage order on their way in and having it ready to scoop up as they fly back out the door for work or a day of personal business.

Inside the security door, past the receptionist and the office, the classrooms are situated in a ring. An infant center, which caters to babies from eight weeks to nine months, has two employees who are regularly joined by mothers who come by to be with their children.

"Since they're new parents, it helps with the anxiety of leaving a child," Bren Hamilton said.

The glass-enclosed infant center faces the main stage and will double as a cry room during performances, she explained.

In the Toddler Room, seven kids between the ages of two and not quite four are in constant motion. One of them works on a giant jigsaw puzzle with an aide. A few more sit listening as the teacher reads from a stack of children's books. Two girls play at the chalkboard, one of them scribbling merrily away as the other follows close behind, erasing as fast as her friend draws.

The restroom that separates the toddlers from the slightly older kids in the Waddler Room next door is equipped with changing stations that are designed to become obsolete as part of the center's potty training education. A bubble machine above the stalls is turned on whenever one of the younger children makes a successful visit to the bathroom and great celebration accompanies the transitional leap from diapers to doing your thing.

The Sunshine Center provides bus and van transportation with pick-up at three local schools and the driver has just delivered several students who attend morning classes in the district to the kindergarten classroom at the far end of the hall.  Had it been a school holiday or even a snow day, the children in all of the classrooms would still be here working with their respective teachers and aides at the center, which remains open for business despite school closures.

The owners took one more parental scheduling crisis into consideration when they added a "Bearly Sick Center" to the childcare facility. The separate space has its own external entry, an on-staff registered nurse and a discrete ventilation system so that germs won't spread to the rest of the building. A few comfy beds, curtains that can be pulled for privacy and a quiet environment gives kids with a sniffle or a stomach ache someplace to be while their parents are at work. The service is designed for children who simply aren't feeling well enough to go to school, not those whose illness requires medical attention.

"The concept is new, but I think it's going to be popular," said Hamilton. "When we asked parents and businesses what they needed, one of the things they came back with was sick care."

Across the open space, a small group of boys and girls was in the middle of lunch at a table outside the center's "almost commercial" kitchen. A pair of industrial dishwashers scheduled for installation this month will bring it up to full commercial status, the co-owner said.

"We serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, because we're open from 6 a.m. until midnight," she added.

The extended hours were inspired by conversations with local employers and their workforce, according to Hamilton.

"It's built around the needs of parents," she said. "The Sunshine Center has two shifts, because so many people - like waitresses or nurses - work the second shift at their jobs."

The couple currently has about 30 employees, made up of accredited teachers, classroom aides and administrative staff. Over the course of two shifts, the center's enrollment capacity is about 150 children. Nearly 70 youngsters have started attending since the business opened in mid-December.

The owners, who had a pre-enrollment waiting list of 140 children before the center was even finished, expect the business to reach capacity relatively quickly for its weekday childcare services. At that point, Bren Hamilton will turn her attention to after-school and weekend activities, such as children's plays, parties and community events.

As a newer character, Nurse Pampers, she has taken her act to nursing homes and assisted living centers, as well as a road trip to join other clowns as they visited with families in Texas and Louisiana who were left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. But it is Miss Sunshine who will get the most attention performing at the venue that bears her name. Best of all, a built-in audience comes along with the deal.

"This is where the whole idea began," Hamilton said as she passed by the stage, located at center stage, of The Sunshine Center. "I don't need someplace that holds hundreds of people. I just want to play with the kids here."

For information on the center, visit: www.thesunshinecenter.org