Coley Stetler and her sister, Megan Snow, had talked for years about opening a learning center. When Stetler moved back to Maine to be closer to family, they enrolled in the Child Care Learning Lab through Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI). The NeighborWorks network organization started the lab to try to counter a 30% decline of child care businesses in the state, particularly in rural areas.
"I fell in love with early childhood education," shares Stetler, who worked in the field in Massachusetts. "We wanted to offer kids a quality, early childhood experience." The lab gave them not just an ending point, but a starting point. "They broke it down, step by step."
Stetler and Snow opened Summit Learning Center in February with the goal of filling a gap in Bangor in early childhood education, child care and – with the pandemic – socialization. "We have a whole group who have never been away from home before," she says. As Summit provides families with support, Stetler and Snow find support in CEI and peers they've met through the program.
"It's really nice to work with others around the state," agrees Juana Rodriguez-Vazquez, another
lab member and director of Rayitos de Sol, which provides child care for migrant children. "Everyone came from various communities, which allowed us to share our diverse and shared challenges."
The child care center opened as a part of Mano en Mano/Hand in Hand, which provides education for migrant children. "It was natural to create a child care program," Rodriguez-Vazquez shares through CEI. Having a business advisor for their unique situation helped, too.
Since March 2020, women participating in CEI's lab have opened 12 new businesses, providing nearly 200 child care spaces. The lab is just one of CEI's programs focusing on women. "We know that women are an incredibly important part of our economic engine and our social fabric," says Sarah Guerette, director of CEI's Women’s Business Centers.
NeighborWorks organizations throughout the network can attest to women's economic roles. During the 2021 fiscal year, 54% of new homeowners created by the NeighborWorks network were women. In network rental properties, 64% of heads of households were women.
NeighborWorks centers a comprehensive community development approach to creating places of opportunity. The approach goes beyond housing to programs like CEI's, which offer women equitable opportunities to thrive.
"We value serving women so we can help them, as entrepreneurs, reach their full potential," Guerette says. CEI's programming includes the Women's Business Centers, which focus on peer learning, speakers, workshops and events.
"A lot of our focus is bringing women together to learn from one another," adds Guerette, who has found that many of the women she's worked with through the center initially lacked the social networks they need to grow their businesses. "We help them create those networks." Last year, the business center served 1,700 women. They have served 20,315 women since they started keeping records in 2001.
The center put out a directory of women-owned businesses, a searchable database that launched in November. And CEI's Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), has made loans for women a strategic focus, providing 906 loans to woman-owned businesses, totaling $44.2 million.
"They have helped me immensely," shares Rheanna Sinnett, who found both financial help and mentorship through the center. Sinnett, who owns Just Add Water Floating Camps, an ecotourism business that rents houseboats, also made connections with other women through the program. "I was just treading water, literally." But with the financial and marketing help she received, she made it through the pandemic and maintains a high occupancy rate.
Sinnett says she connects with driven women who are always willing to help each other out and to listen. "I think we're going to be lifelong friends." Many of the women wear multiple hats, doing everything from bookkeeping and marketing to fixing engines and sales. "CEI does an awesome job helping us, as individuals, find balance."
In the last fiscal year, CEI made 47 loans to woman-owned businesses. "Wholistically, this feels like an important place to move the needle," Guerette says.
03/28/2022
