BROOKINGS — On March 3, the Brookings Boys & Girls Club will open a new preschool facility — part of the Brookings Child Care Collaborative — featuring 130 slots for kids ages zero to three.

“We’re starting to take on families to participate,” Jody Hernandez, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Plains, said. “Any family from birth to age 5 — it just depends on where you’re at … whether they’ll come to the club or the school district — but since we’re a collaborative and we work together, your child starts with us and then just moves through the program.”

The collaborative resulted from a 2019 study by the Brookings Economic Development Corp. identifying a countywide lack of child care. A follow-up study found a need for 495 new slots in the city alone. The collaborative consists of the BEDC, SDSU, the Boys & Girls Club and the Brookings School District. Their goal is to provide 360 child care slots — 130 infant and 230 preschool —from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. When the school district constructed new elementary buildings last summer, they incorporated preschool space for kids ages zero through 5. The Boys & Girls Club expansion is the next phase.

“When the elementary schools opened … we had a club open in every preschool,” Hernandez said. “Then we went ahead and maintained 3-year-olds at our facility. The money that the city was going to give BEDC to rehab a building and try to start their own facility … the city went ahead and redirected that to us to remodel our space.”

The city channeled $580,000 in federal stimulus money to the project. Through the BEDC, the club also received $450,000 from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Renovation work at the club wrapped up last month.

“We will do a ribbon-cutting right before March 3 and we’ll probably have an open house,” Hernandez said. “(Parents) can go to our website and they can easily sign up there … And we’re always looking for staff. We already have a great staff pool, but we are looking for more.”

She said they aim to provide an educational service.

“One of the really big components that’s been huge with the school district is literacy and really how can we start that at an early age?” Hernandez said. “We’re not just babysitting children. This is an early learning component, and literacy is a key component to all of this. How can we instill literacy at such an early age? … That’s what’s really important with the partnership with the school district as well. Our staff get training from the school district and the university.”

She said it will be a challenge.

“Boys and Girls Club had always been an after school program,” Hernandez said. “When it came back overwhelmingly that we needed to be part of this zero to three conversation, it was a little scary. That’s not the sandbox we normally play in. But we’re there to serve those who need us the most. Right now, that is those who need us the most.”

She said child care plays an important role in economic development.

“This is a great recruitment tool to offer a business,” Hernandez said. “Businesses know that they need child care, but not everybody wants to offer it … Being able to say that you’re partnering with an organization that has it, and it’s something you can offer to a business when they partner with you and they can offer it as a recruitment tool to their employees — that’s pretty great.”

She said they are planting seeds that will take time to grow.

“What we’re hoping with our outcomes is that we’ll be able to show kiddos who’ve been with our program start to score better,” Hernandez said. “We kind of joke that it’ll be 18 years before we see results … Even after kindergarten — when they’re going to school — they come to us after school. So we’re doing power hour or we’re doing tutoring with them. We are still instilling those components with them. We’re still helping them. We’re still reinforcing what they’re learning in school at each stage.”

She said not many other Boys & Girls Club chapters offer this.

“Sioux Falls does take kiddos age birth to five, but Sioux Falls is one of the only ones,” Hernandez said. “It’s one of those areas where we’re still trying to figure out that special recipe. What is that calculation so you can be successful without losing your shirt? … It takes a lot of work and it’s difficult for a lot of organizations. We’re very lucky because we already have a facility that’s running. We run the afterschool program out of this facility and we already have all this space. That was really beneficial.”

She said no single member of the collaborative could’ve done this alone.

“The collaborative is what’s really important. It’s the strength of all the different organizations working together,” Hernandez said. “Our mission is to help those who need us the most, but also to support both the school district and our students’ academic journeys. We’re not there to compete with anyone … (the collaborative seeks) to all come together and try to figure out how to best serve our community.”

Contact Jay Roe at jroe@brookingsregister.com.