c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
East Wing Construction
Multi-Purpose/4K Classrooms, Bathroom, Vestibule, Dividing Wall, Unfinished Kitchen
$741,195
West Wing Construction
Shop, Teacher Resource Area, Stroller Storage, Boilers/Hot Water Heater
$445,727
PHASE I SUBTOTAL
$1,186,922
New Additions
Infant/Toddler Classroom Space, Student Bathrooms, Gazebo
$346,988
Remodeled Areas
Offices, Kitchen and Pantry, New Classroom, Laundry Room, Library, Storage
$824,680
Mechanicals
Plumbing, Sprinkler, HVAC Electrical
$309,644
Furniture
Classroom, Offices
$ 74,688
PHASE II SUBTOTAL
$1,556,000
TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COSTS (PHASE I & II)
$2,742,922
Added Expenses
Fencing, Broadband, Appliances, Transitions
$250,000
Contingency
$200,000
Operating Reserves
$400,000
TOTAL ADDITIONAL PROJECT EXPENSES
$850,000
TOTAL CAMPAIGN GOAL
$3,592,922
c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
New 4K Classroom
The immediate priority are the two new 4K classrooms that will serve up to 50 children in partnership with Gibraltar Area School District. The new spaces will allow not only room for classroom activities and programming, but also a dedicated bathroom for this age group, and coat/locker space for these students. Thanks to the generosity of a $1 million dollar lead gift to the campaign, the Phase I construction is complete.
New Teacher Resource Area
A new Teacher Resource Area will provide much needed space for the Northern Door Children’s Center staff to organize and access resources for activity planning, lesson preparation and collaboration, as well as an area to store personal items and take breaks.
New Garage/Storage Space
As the new home for “The Shop,” the garage/storage space will allow the Center to more efficiently accept and manage the numerous in-kind donations that help make our work possible. It will also be the place where we store the critically important building sanitization equipment, and will serve as workspace for our maintenance person.
Expanded and Reconfigured Infant Classrooms
We will expand into two crib areas to increase our capacity and allow for older and younger infants to be separated, thereby better managing their sleep schedules. We are creating an expanded area to allow infants to explore their world. We’re also adding a dedicated infant laundry area to allow for more efficient use of staff time.
Creation of a Family Nursing and Feeding Room
While we have long encouraged breastfeeding of children as the best (when possible, of course), we have never had a dedicated area to foster the ability of mothers to nurse their babies immediately before dropping off their children or after picking them up, as well as during school hours. Given that we are the only child care facility in Northern Door, it’s not uncommon for our parents to have long drives to and from work.
Expanded and Reconfigured Toddler Classrooms
We will expand the toddler classrooms, reconfigure the restrooms so that toddlers have dedicated space for toilet learning, and provide more efficient space for teachers to store classroom materials and prepare their learning plans.
Reconfigured 3K Classroom
Similar to the toddler classrooms, we will reorient the space to create increased storage for classroom materials, offer a better teacher preparation area, and reconfigure the bathrooms so that the 3K students have a dedicated space.
Flexible Classroom Space
The plan calls for the construction of flexible classroom space that will primarily be dedicated for speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy for students who have special needs. The space will be adaptable enough to serve as flexible classroom space for any age group as enrollments fluctuate from year to year.
New Outdoor Classroom
For the first time we’ll have dedicated outdoor learning space for school-age children. Our Camp Cool after-school and summer program will then be able to offer more nature-based teaching and bring our school-age students outdoors more often.
New Indoor/Outdoor Bathrooms
New bathrooms will be constructed that can serve school-age children from inside the building and separate them from the younger children. The bathroom will also be accessible from outdoors, thereby allowing more efficient staff coverage of children who need to use the facility while the rest of the class is playing outside.
New Library
We will construct a new library that will provide books for children, training and resource materials for our teachers, and parenting resources for our families.
New Multi-Purpose Room
This large flexible room be used in part to house 4K during the academic school year but will be used primarily for our Camp Cool programming after the school day ends and during the summers for school-age children. It will also provide a play area during the school day for toddlers through 4K students during times of inclement weather. The Multi-Purpose Room will also have separate bathrooms and an entrance to provide for community learning opportunities for parents after the children have gone home for the day.
New Kitchen
Caring for children requires us to provide healthy meals and snacks throughout the day. Our new kitchen will be significantly larger, both increasing our capacity and allowing for more efficient meal preparation. The larger pantry area will also allow us to purchase food and supplies in larger quantities at lower prices.
New Administrative Space
As we increase the capacity of Northern Door Children’s Center to serve the community, we also need to ensure that adequate space is available for the administrative functions of the Center. The new office space will allow for confidential meetings with families, a private area to counsel children, and a general place to confer with partners, donors, and other people with business at the Center.
For more information about the NDCC Essential Campaign and the Phase 2 building renovations, please contact Karl Wise, Essential Campaign Team Chair, by email at jkwise948@gmail.com.
c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
When we think of essential services, we typically think of firefighters, medical personnel, and police officers. Yet as we learned during COVID, none of these essential workers could do their jobs without high-quality, affordable, accessible child care. That’s why throughout the pandemic, Northern Door Children’s Center remained open, providing care for the children of the people who care for our community.
Child care is essential for more than just emergency service workers. Northern Door Children’s Center serves the children of the people who serve our community. From restaurant wait staff, to grocery store workers, teachers, bankers, utility company workers, accountants, landscapers, and so many other working people – the availability of high-quality, affordable, accessible child care is essential if we are to fill the jobs of the people who serve all of us. Yet the importance of Northern Door Children’s Center goes far beyond simply providing Door County with a workforce.
We have recently launched a collaborative partnership with Gibraltar Area Schools to provide 4K programming that has existed at Northern Door Children’s Center since 2007. However, learning at Northern Door Children’s Center begins far earlier than that. From the earliest days when children become part of our Center family, we are looking for ways to provide proper, age-appropriate stimulation and activities to nurture their minds and bodies. We foster social and emotional growth of the children and provide tools to their parents to help strengthen their families. We serve Door County’s youngest and most precious residents. But sometimes, some children do not thrive right from the start. Thankfully, Northern Door Children’s Center is here to help.
Our early childhood educators are trained to recognize the developmental stages of young children. Though every child reaches milestones on their own schedule, it is important to recognize when a child may be outside the area of typical development and is not yet thriving. From a physical limitation to cognitive delays, the professional staff of Northern Door Children’s Center recognizes when referral to early intervention professionals may be needed. The early recognition of a potential delay or disability, followed by professional assessment and intervention, typically makes the remediation effort much easier. Further, we provide information and support for the child’s parents during the intervention process. Northern Door Children’s Center is a partner for parents and a source of support.
Through the remarkable generosity of our community, we provide scholarships to working families who find the cost of early care and education to be a strain on their family. The parents who work in northern Door are contributing members of our community and the work they do helps to make Door County the wonderful place that it is. If a parent is working hard to make a living, Northern Door Children’s Center is there to support them on their journey.
Phase I of the campaign was a $1.2 million effort to construct a new multi-purpose room that houses our 4-year-old kindergarten classrooms, a teacher resource area, and a shop/equipment and material storage center. Thanks to the remarkable generosity of a new donor who contributed $1 million, Phase I construction is complete. Phase II is a $2.4 million series of planned improvements and expansions of everything from the 3K program room, to the toddler classrooms, infant classrooms, playground area, and academic support space. We invite you to peruse the materials to learn more about the campaign – or we invite you to take a tour of the existing facility so you can learn more. Your generosity is essential to our effort.
Northern Door Children’s Center is one of only three licensed child care facilities in all of Door County and the only one dedicated to serving the people who live or work north of Sturgeon Bay.
We are Northern Door Children’s Center.
We are the essential service on the northern half of our peninsula.
c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
One of the great challenges of being a working parent of young children is that you must bear the burden of child care costs at the early stages of your career when the hours you work are the highest, but the financial rewards are the lowest.
Thankfully, through the remarkable generosity of our community, we are able to provide scholarships to struggling working families who are having the hardest time making ends meet. 15-20% of the children at the Center receive scholarship awards that directly reduce the tuition cost of their early care and education experience.
Further, generous private donations support the operating budget of the Center. In effect we are making it just a little bit easier for every working family. These annual operating gifts from the community help keep our tuition reasonable and within reach of most of Northern Door’s families.
That same philosophy is at work as a part of this campaign. Northern Door Children’s Center needs $3.6 million of capital improvements because they are essential to our ability to meet the needs of the Northern Door community. Were we to pass these costs on to our working families through higher tuition rates, our early care and education programs would be beyond the reach of most of the restaurant wait staff, grocery store workers, teachers, bankers, utility company workers, accountants, landscapers, and so many other working people who serve our community. If a parent is working hard to make a living, Northern Door Children’s Center is there to support them on their journey.
c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
We provide essential early intervention and support for children – and their families – who are not yet thriving.
The early childhood professionals of Northern Door Children’s Center are perfectly positioned to recognize that a child may be outside the area of typical development and may require the assistance of early intervention professionals. We provide information and support for families as they seek early remediation. Our unique infant/toddler looping program connects a small team of primary early childhood professionals to the same group of infants and they move on together through the first three years of life. The secure attachment built between the team and the children is essential to brain development and allows the children to thrive. This continuity over several years places the teaching team in the perfect position to recognize when a child is not reaching milestones within typical development period.
Our early childhood educators are specially trained to watch for developmental benchmarks and identify when a child is not meeting them. From a physical limitation to a cognitive delay, the professional staff of Northern Door Children’s Center identifies potential issues and connects parents to early intervention efforts. The early recognition of a potential delay or disability, followed by professional assessment and intervention typically makes the remediation effort far easier.
Further, we provide information and support for the child’s parents during the intervention process. In Northern Door County, we’re one big extended family. Our support and embrace of parents who are dealing with a newfound challenge goes far beyond the walls of our building.
The $3.6 million campaign began with Phase I and the construction of a $1.2 million addition. This work has already been completed thanks to a wonderfully generous lead donation of $1 million from a new friend of the Center. The $2.4 million Phase II includes dedicated space for speech therapists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists to work with children who have disabilities. A dedicated library space will provide resources for parents and family members and a new multi-purpose room will be used to offer expanded educational opportunities to both better train our teachers and offer learning and support for families.
Your contribution will ensure that every child in Northern Door has an opportunity to thrive.
c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235