Donations Help

[mrs.banks14]

Dont understand

I have also heard that churches have ways to get around being licensed. There's a program near me that does full day care for preschoolers, plus after school care. They call themselves an art academy, which draws people from a couple of different crowds. And because technically, they are offering two half day programs and they are church-based, they are not licensed, which they say is legal. But if parents ask, their kids can pack a lunch and stay for both half days, making it full time child care.

I dont understand how that is legal. But I dont know how alot of places are open but they are. Even like my center I dont know how it is open.

[Annalee]

We are not a home daycare. But I feel like they over look a lot of things. I am working with a child care aware lady and she even feels bad for me. But is helping me a lot. State came in my first day. We got written up three times. And our staff never shows up.

I have 2 previous protégés that are being hounded by licensing right now and that really gets my goat because they have been licensed for under a year and guess who licensed them to open? Yep, the same licensor! Some of the licensing issues should have been addressed BEFORE they were allowed to open! These proteges do NOT have it all together and I get that, but licensing just did NOT handle it right! Hang in there! I hope it gets better for you.

[mrs.banks14]

Wow

When asking for donations just be friendly and polite. There are TONS of places that you can get free stuff that people will be more than happy to give away.

Go on Facebook and look for a local Free group. We have one for our county where people list things they just want to get rid of fast. Sometimes the items are toys and child items, you can always just respond to these items but be quick. These are all first come first serve and the items go to the first person that responds. If the items are still good but not child related you can always get the item anyway and store it and when you have enough gathered you can do a rummage sale to collect money for more supplies and toys. I just scored a huge trash bag full of newborn baby clothes which I took a few pieces out that fit our dolls and will pass on the rest of the clothes to someone else.

You can always make nice flyers to give to the parents that ask for toy and child items. You can use what you need and anything like clothing or other items that you can't use in the center can go towards the rummage sale.

contacting businesses is another way to get items for free. I contacted offices and introduced myself as a child care provider and asked if they had anything to donate that we could use. I got binders, notebooks, some picture frames and best of all a whole lot of paper. One side was printed on but the kids don't care. They just want to paint and draw. We made a lot of projects out of all of that stuff.

I also went to a mobile phone store and asked if they ever got any old donated flip style phones that they could donate to us for play phones and the manager said he had something better and gave me a bag with 10 new "dummy" phones. They look like phones but they don't have the glass screen and they don't have anything inside. They are model phones. The kids now have fake smart phones to play with and they love it.

From an insurance agent I got stuffed bears, coloring books and stickers. They all have the insurance label on them of course but the kids don't care, they love them just the same. Their office also always gets stuff from other offices like note pads, sticky notes etc with those business logos and so because they can't pass those out to their clients (against company policy) they hold them for me and call me when they have a copy paper box full of them and I give them to the kids and they use them during play to play school, restaurant, office etc.

I also shop garage sales and when they have kids stuff I introduce myself and ask if I can come back after the sale and take any child items that didn't sell. Last year I got a lot of things this way and used what I needed and boxed up what I couldn't but was still good and got a booth at our bi yearly community children's rummage sale and sold the boxed up stuff. I made a couple hundred dollars and used it to replace some worn out toys and to get some stuff we needed.

All in all you just have to be friendly and say you work with kids. Think about what someone or a business could have that you can use and suggest that. I got the paper because the office I went to said they didn't have anything to donate and I asked if they had paper that they were going to recycle for the kids to use as drawing paper and to play office, the girls eyes lit up and she said yes and brought out a box full of paper and that's how we got the binders and note books "so the kids can play office".

If someone donates I get the roll of painting paper out and we make a big "thank you" poster for them. Businesses especially love this.

You have some great information here. Thank you so much for sharing with me. I know I will put this all to great use.