essential service

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 entirety of the pandemic, Northern Door Children’s Center has remained open, providing care for the children of the people who care for our community.

Yet 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 with the people who serve all of us.

We provide early care and education for children from six weeks old all the way up to 11-year-olds who need a safe place to relax and learn after school and during summers as a part of our Camp Cool program.

Despite the incredible importance of child care to our quality of life, there are only three licensed child care facilities in all of Door County and only one whose mission is to serve the people who live and work north of Sturgeon Bay. Northern Door Children’s Center.

That’s why it’s so critical that Northern Door Children’s Center expands. This $3.6 million capital campaign will dramatically improve our ability to serve the children of the workers who serve our community. Phase I was $1.2 million of new construction that enabled us to offer a new space for our existing 4-year-old kindergarten program, which recently expanded to include a  collaborative program with Gibraltar School District. Thanks to an initial $1 million gift to the campaign, Phase I construction is complete. Phase II is a $2.4 million reconfiguration and expansion of existing space, including enlarging both the infant and toddler classrooms.

Your gift makes certain that we can serve the children of the people who serve you and the Northern Door community.

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.