New day care programs open in two Eden Prairie churches

Daycare programs are opening in two Eden Prairie churches this year, one in the northern part of the city and one in the southern part. Both Aventuras Childcare at Casa de Victorias and Mouna’s Children Center at Prairie Lutheran Church are currently enrolling.

“There’s definitely a need” in Eden Prairie, said Maimouna Coulibaly, director of Mouna’s Children Center. Her research indicated that need exists, particularly in ZIP code 55347, despite the existence of other day care centers within Eden Prairie. 

Casa de Victorias Pastor Marisol McKay says she knows of this need through her own family. McKay and her husband have six grandchildren. “We feel the pain of our daughters when they don’t have a place to put the kids, or ‘Mami, I need help with the kids,’” she said. 

Samuel Fondeur, McKay’s son and the church’s young adult leader, added that market research had shown long wait times for enrollment in specific child care centers. “So there’s a high demand for child care, especially now that financially it’s almost required that you would have two incomes in a household,” Fondeur said. 

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Providers themselves face challenges in opening a licensed child care center. “Before you even submit your application, you have to have a place,” Coulibaly said. “So now you have rent to pay, with no money coming in.” In her specific case, Prairie Lutheran has allowed Coulibaly to occupy the child care space rent-free until children are enrolled.

Identifying a space is not the only requirement that must be in place before applying for a license approval visit. “You have to have everything set up: teachers, classroom, everything in place before you get your license,” she said. 

Casa de Victorias’s building previously housed a day care when it was the home of another church. “We thought it would be really easy, because it was previously licensed,” said Scott McKay, Pastor Marisol McKay’s husband and the director of Aventuras Childcare. That wasn’t the case. “All the licensing rules change so fast in Minnesota,” he said. “We had to bring in plumbers, electricians and carpenters to get everything just right. It’s remarkable how much was involved.”

Faith-based Spanish immersion, play-based curricula offered at new child care centers

Both Mouna’s Children Center and Aventuras Childcare serve children from infancy through preschool. Mouna’s Children Center also offers before- and after-school, and summer care for children up to age 12. School-age care is an eventual goal for Aventuras as well.

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“When school is out, you have those older kids, they need a place to go while the parents go to work,” Coulibaly said. During the school year, “a lot of times parents have to be to work at a certain time, and that time does not work with a school bus schedule,” and the school may not be open for early drop-off. Parents can identify the child care center, rather than their home address, as the school bus pickup and drop-off point for their child. 

Aventuras Childcare has a faith-based Spanish immersion curriculum. While they’ve purchased The Creative Curriculum as a foundation, they plan to expand on its themes.

For example, Pastor Marisol McKay said The Creative Curriculum has a unit on balls, which are round. Expanding on that idea could include teaching that the world is round, and using a Bible verse indicating that God created the world, she said. All instruction is in Spanish. The classroom teachers are all native Spanish speakers, hailing from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, with child development accreditations. 

Originally, Coulibaly said she wanted to create a French immersion child care center but was unable to find enough qualified teachers in Minnesota. 

Coulibaly said she is offering teachers at her center a higher salary than elsewhere, along with benefits and a four-day workweek, to help make it possible for those who want to stay in education.

“Working with kids is fun, and if it’s something you really want to do, it’s rewarding, but it’s a lot,” Coulibaly said. Speaking about the overall child care industry, she added, “At the end of the day, when you get paid, it’s like you’re putting all of that energy and the time in, and you’re like, ‘How do I make ends meet?’ It’s not fair.”

Mouna’s Children Center is a play-based program that incorporates outdoor learning, including gardening. “We are not babysitters. This is a child care center,” Coulibaly said. “It’s a play-based learning space. A lot of times, parents underestimate how much children learn through play.”

Why start child care centers? A passion for education, plus ‘a social responsibility’

“Education is my passion,” said Coulibaly, explaining why she wanted to open a child care center. She previously worked as a teacher in a Head Start program in New York, a high school principal in Mali, West Africa, and a special education teacher assistant in Minneapolis Public Schools.

While working as an office manager, she decided, “I’m going to open my own school, run my own school, and be in the classroom with kids and do what I love to do.” She pursued a degree in early childhood development, adding to her previous academic degrees in business administration and mathematics.

Coulibaly also connected with Think Small, an early learning organization that provides guidance and resources for both child care providers and parents. It was through Think Small that Coulibaly, a Minneapolis resident, made the connection with Prairie Lutheran Church. 

“I fell in love with the place the first time I came to check it out,” Coulibaly said. Portions of the church now used for Mouna’s Children Center previously housed the Prairie School of Dance, which moved to Chanhassen in 2023. 

To honor the church’s name, the child care center’s classrooms are named for prairie animals. Infants are monarchs, toddlers are grasshoppers and prairie dogs, pre-kindergarteners are jack rabbits, and school-age children are coyotes. 

The Aventuras Childcare rooms are named for characteristics of the children’s ages, Marisol McKay said. Infants are divers, toddlers are pilots and explorers, pre-kindergarteners are surfers and swordfish.

Overall, McKay said, she wants the children who attend to feel the same comfort they would when visiting their grandmother’s house. Two of the McKays’ grandchildren will attend the center. 

Scott McKay, who has a degree in psychology and previous experience working with children and adults with physical and learning disabilities, originally wanted to start an academic school. Marisol McKay suggested they start with a day care.

As a church with the space, she said, there’s a social responsibility. McKay said Casa de Victorias wants to offer children “an environment where they can grow and feel loved and feel reassured, and that they can grow with an identity, they can know God and that they can have values.” 

Aventuras Childcare is located within the Casa de Victorias church building, 14100 Valley View Road. Mouna’s Children Center is located within Prairie Lutheran Church, 11000 Blossom Road.