Maplewood resident Ann Bouwhuis’ husband, Wolfgang, surprised her one day almost 20 years ago, when he came home from work at Sunnen Products and told her she was going to open her a school.
“He said, ‘Guess what? You’re going to have your own school,’ and my jaw dropped. But it’s really been a blessing,” she said.
Wolfgang Bouwhuis is Sunnen’s trade show coordinator. He was talking with the president of the company when the Sunnen Business Park was being developed and there was a need for childcare in the park, but Sunnen didn’t want to open a center; Bouwhuis opened her center, Home Away From Home Child Care Center, in a house on Laclede Station Road. She had been in early childhood since graduating from South County Tech in 1979.
The center was initially licensed for 20 children from 2-6 years old. Later she added infants and toddlers because there was such a demand. They moved to a house on Flora Avenue when the Sunnen Metrolink station was built and the houses in that area were removed.
Bouwhuis said the new house is the just the right size. “Really, just striving to be that happy medium between an in-home provider and a large center,” she said.
“This way we’re small enough so that I’m not stuck behind a desk doing paperwork,” she said. “I can be with the children. I’m talking to the parents everyday, because it’s only when you have that cooperative relationship with parents you can truly meet the needs of the kids.”
Bouwhuis said some families have brought back second and third kids. “When that last baby grows up and moves on there’s tears,” she said. “It’s neat to feel like you’re part of their family in a way.”
She said some folks look at the large age-group span as unconventional, because mixed age groups are usually three to five years old. She’s licensed for six weeks through six years, and uses it to their advantage.
“We can integrate those babies and toddlers with the older children, giving them the proper support so they can be safe as successful,” she said. “The glory of that is that the opportunity to interact across developmental levels is a teacher in and of itself,” she said. “That’s the way families used to be. You have that peer modeling going on.”
She said she plans activities so all the kids are challenged at their own level — to get to the next level.
“I”m a firm believer that if children are not challenged appropriately they will find inappropriate ways to challenge themselves,” she said.
Bouwhuis said her childcare center isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.