Nurses, techs get new option for daycare with new $1.5M Beaufort Memorial children’s center
Every working parent dreads the mornings they have to get creative in finding childcare for their preschooler. Beaufort Memorial Hospital is removing the anxiety and uncertainty for many of its staff members with young children.
The hospital has turned to a local preschool to run a new $1.5 million childcare center it has opened on its Beaufort campus to meet growing childcare needs of employees in rapidly growing Beaufort County.
The Beaufort Memorial Learning Center is an employer-subsidized childcare program offered in partnership with Hobbit Hill Preschools, which is owned by state Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort.
The Learning Center is licensed by the state for 99 children but is not currently at capacity.
The move comes as the hospital is continually challenged in filling a high number of nursing vacancies and improving training and childcare options to attract health care staff.
In July, the hospital opened a $2.8 million workforce development center featuring manikins equipped with artificial intelligence technology to help train nurses and medical technicians in an effort to put a dent in staffing shortages.
The workforce in Beaufort County faces two big issues: affordable housing and affordable childcare, said Russell Baxley, Beaufort Memorial president and CEO. The Learning Center, he added, is a “huge step” in addressing the childcare needs of its employees in a county that has seen the population grow by 6.3% to 198,979 since 2020 and increased more than 23% since 2010.
“We had to do this,” Baxley said in a news release. “We talk a lot about how access in Beaufort is tough for health care, but it’s probably even tougher for childcare. This is a great step in addressing that issue.”
In January, Baxley told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet that, “We’re not daycare managers. We were put in a pretty bad situation when COVID first hit. Everything shut down including schools. The only places that didn’t shut down were hospitals.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers were in a unique position in that their skills were essential on-site. But with children at home because of school closures, employees needed a reliable and affordable childcare that would allow them to come to work, the hospital said.
To address the problem, in September 2020, the hospital renovated and rented a space on Lady’s Island for a state-licensed childcare center then hired Erickson and Hobbit Hill Preschools, the largest childcare provider in the area with four childcare centers, to run it.
The lower-cost childcare was vital to keeping the hospital open and became so popular with employees that the hospital decided to open a new facility closer to the work site on the Beaufort campus, Baxley said.
The hospital broke ground on the new freestanding facility on its main campus in Beaufort in March 2024 and construction wrapped up this summer shortly before the program moved into its new home. Erickson has been contracted to run that facility as well. Hospital officials joined Erickson and local elected officials in celebrating the opening of the facility on Friday.
The Learning Center was a $1.5 million project. Over $500,000, or about a third of the funding came from the Beaufort Memorial Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the not-for-profit hospital dedicated to raising funds to support improvements. The remainder of the funding came from a variety of grants the hospital received from various sources and from the hospital’s reserves, the hospital said.
The hospital and Erickson said none of the funding for the childcare center came from appropriations of public money from the state Legislature where Erickson serves as chair of the House Education Committee.
“It’s been a public-private partnership from day one,” Erickson said of her relationship with the hospital. “The hospital has provided the location and the facility and we provide management of the child care services. That’s the way it started and the way it is now.”
Partnerships are needed to provide child care, which is critical in retaining and recruiting employees, said Erickson, adding, “I’m honored to be able to work on this because it’s such a need in the region and nation.”
As it continues to expand its health care facilities in southern Beaufort County, Baxley said, Beaufort Memorial has plans to develop a second childcare facility for its employees in the Okatie area. Who will run that facility has not been announced.
Megan Morris, president and CEO of the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the partnership is “setting the tone and the example for others to follow as we strive to build our community.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2024 at 11:26 AM.
