Colorado Springs Day Nursery Association Now Called Early Connections Learning Center
As more people started moving to Colorado Springs in the late 19th century, the need for help taking care of children quickly became apparent. The reasons parents seek childcare may have changed through the years, but it remains a needed service in society.
The old saying “It takes a village to raise a child” is as true now as it was several decades ago.
In the late 1800s, a group of women in Colorado Springs saw the need for childcare services and started the Colorado Springs Day Nursery Association, a nonprofit that provides assistance for parents in need. Over 100 years later, the nonprofit is still in operation – now called Early Connections Learning Centers – and it continues to offer childcare.
Local Women Establish Colorado Springs Day Nursery
“There is no problem that a determined group of women cannot solve,” the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum website states. “Answering the growing need of working mothers to leave their small children in safe care, a group of local women organized a day nursery in 1897.”
According to the website, day nurseries became a popular movement nationwide during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920s) to help offset the impacts urban and industrial growth were having on families. The day nurseries were created “of-by-for women” in a time when working-class mothers needed childcare, and middle- and upper-class women had the desire to help.
In Colorado Springs, some women who came to the town from the East Coast knew about day nurseries and they saw a need locally as the city started to grow. “At that time, a lot of families were moving west and particularly to Colorado Springs to search for cures for tuberculosis, or to chase their fortunes in the gold mines,” explained Liz Denson, President and CEO of Early Connections Learning Centers. “So, at that time there were a lot of men and mothers who were in sanatoriums or working and dying in the gold mines, and no one to care for the children during the day. So these women, after noticing children literally running amok in the streets with no one watching for them, they came together on March 16, 1897, and wrote the bylaws the same day, and founded the day nursery association.”
The organization immediately rented a home and started caring for children. Since children were at risk of contracting diseases like tuberculosis, the day nursery association also included healthcare services.
Local Philanthropist Donates Money for a New Building
After the nonprofit struggled through the Spanish influenza pandemic, one of the founders, Alice Bemis Taylor, donated $160,000 toward the construction of a new building for the organization. Taylor dedicated the building to her late mother who was also a founder of the day nursery association. Construction on the building that still houses the organization’s headquarters began in 1922, and the project was completed in 1924.
“When it was initially built, the intention was that it would be a community hub or a one-stop shop for community services,” Denson said. “So not only was the Day Nursery Association housed there, but so was the Colorado Springs city doctor. That was really key because at that time they performed minor surgeries at the day nursery. There was an operating room on the third floor so they were ready to perform procedures on site instead of the child having to leave the nursery and travel to a hospital.”
In 1973, the organization merged with Child Day Care Center, which had a childcare center near the Antlers Hotel in downtown Colorado Springs and changed its name to Colorado Springs Child Nursery Centers. In 2010, the non-profit became Early Connections Learning Centers to change its name to better reflect the services they offer in the 21st century.
The Non-Profit Continues its Mission Today with Four Locations
After surviving two global pandemics, the organization still fulfills the need for child care during a time when the nation has been suffering from a childcare provider shortage. The organization still focuses on the health of children by providing high-quality nutritious meals and hearing and vision screenings, and they have a health consultant who will help children receive medical services. Currently, the organization still operates in the original day nursery building, the Child Day Care Center building, and two other locations in the central part of the city.
Around a decade ago, the nonprofit began to realize that mental health issues also needed to be addressed. “We noticed an increased amount of children enrolling with challenging behaviors,” the nonprofit’s president said. “And, our teachers weren’t equipped to deal with some of these behaviors that the children were exhibiting. We had teachers quitting because they were being hit and kicked and just kind of abused by these children. And, so we implemented a social emotional and mental health curriculum, which has helped support our teachers in their everyday work in the classroom. And that has been a true game-changer for us. Especially now post-pandemic, I feel like had we not already had these mental health supports in place before the pandemic, it would have been a much more challenging time for us.”
From its beginning, the nonprofit put focused on providing care for low-income families. Even though parents seeking childcare don’t have to qualify as being low-income to utilize the organization’s services, 98 percent of their children are on state subsidies or on their sliding fee scale program.
“We started off with a small home where we served a dozen children,” Denson said. “Today, we serve about 350 children every day. And over the course of our history, we have impacted the lives of generations of Colorado Springs families, which is, I think, what makes us so special and unique. In addition to that, our building that was built for our organization 100 years ago is still meeting its intended purpose.”
