Lil’ Chompers Child Care takes shape: Another family child care business soon coming to Greenbush

Lynn Balstad (left) sits with some young children on the Greenbush Child Care Task Force-Lil’ Chompers Child Care float during the Greenbush Fourth of July parade. Balstad is part of this group, one looking to help address the area’s childcare shortage. (photo by Ryan Bergeron)

A group of individuals united to address a shortage in Greenbush: child care. As it currently stands, Greenbush has two childcare providers.

After some work behind the scenes, this group of people formed a non-profit called Greenbush Child Care Task Force-Lil’ Chompers Child Care. In the process, this group has already helped to add at least one more childcare business to Greenbush— to begin in just a couple months.

Establishing this non-profit allows the task force to apply for grant funding, Greenbush Mayor Eric Etherington explained during a June 21, 2021 Greenbush city council meeting. He said the group had contacted state representative John Burkel about potential state funding and was waiting to hear back.

Involved with this task force, Etherington said the group had been working with Blessed Sacrament Church in Greenbush to have a childcare provider at its facility by the start of the upcoming school year. Aubrey Johnson is that childcare provider, working towards her licensing. She will be starting her family childcare business in the Blessed Sacrament Church basement this fall.

Etherington said during the June 21 city council meeting that the task force was also in discussions with Bethel Lutheran Church in Greenbush to possibly use some of its rooms for childcare, as another individual expressed interest in providing childcare in Greenbush.

At a July 22 task force meeting, Greenbush city council member Josh Kern— also part of this childcare task force—added how this group was not only looking to help Greenbush, but also Badger with its childcare shortage. According to Alicia Bauman— involved with the task force and a Parent Aware Recruiter— the Badger community had two licensed early childhood educators as of October 2020, but now has none, as reported in a March 3, 2021 Tribune story titled, “Area experiencing childcare shortage.”

To learn more about this task force, visit the “Greenbush Child Care Task Force-Lil’ Chompers Child Care” Facebook page. To see the complete story, read the July 7 issue of The Tribune in print or online.