We started as a small private centre with no name that cared for the children of Sleeping Giant Brewing Company when covid lock-downs happened in 2020. The brewery was deemed essential and Andrea needed her staff to work, enter Leeann who was ready to become a bubble educator for the children. When restrictions were lifted, their small in-house centre had built a little reputation for itself and began accepting community children, which led to growing a wait-list. Enough of a wait-list that Andrea and Leeann decided to take the plunge into a full fledged licensed childcare centre, but on two conditions: Leeann wanted Meghan to be her partner, and Andrea wanted Stephanie to be hers; and right there at a picnic table one afternoon in June Nature’s Nest and the dream team behind it was born. 

The decision to be private is based on autonomy. Typically families are on one big wait-list and when their child is selected for a space, the family often has to accept what they are given or risk losing their spot. Families don’t get to choose who is responsible for their children, or the philosophy if any their child will be learning under. We wanted families to choose us because they want us, not because they have no choice. It is our mission to make sure all the children in our care are there because what we offer is what their parents want for them. It’s already stressful enough to let go of your children, we don’t want to add to that stress by taking the power of choice away from families. The trade off for families is having to pay the full fee. 

We encountered so many hurdles bringing Nature’s Nest to life. Finding the right location, obtaining all the necessary permits, permissions, and licenses. And then we had to renovate, update, and retrofit the space to be up to code and ready to accept children. It is those first families we owe the most gratitude to as they endured all of our growing pains. We learned a lot those first few months about what Thunder Bay families needed and wanted from their childcare provider, and endured what felt like a crushing amount of scrutiny, but we knew what we were doing was important work so we listened to all of the feedback, pushed ahead, and we are so glad we did. 

Within the first six months of opening we expanded and added a second location to our services, allowing us to offer even more childcare spaces to the families of Thunder Bay as the demand was so high. That centre came with the same hurdles as our inaugural site, but we had it up and running by our 1 year anniversary. This is when we decided to name our programs: Seedlings, Sprouts, Buds, and Sunflowers. Our philosophy then leaned even deeper into child development and we began placing children into programs that were better aligned with their interests and capabilities. In year three, we expanded our programs again, and now have a Saplings program that caters to children in JK - Grade 1.

We truly believe that if we continue on this journey with a growth mindset, allowing the hurdles to teach us lessons instead of holding us down, we can only continue to become better tomorrow than we are today.