BONNYVILLE – Happy House Daycare has found a place to call home in the Town of Bonnyville.
The Cold Lake-based business will be setting up a location in the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre after town council approved their development permit during their April 14 meeting.
After having their original application turned down in January due to the prior location being deemed unsuitable, owner Uta Squire said they were approached by the Centennial Centre to set up in their facility.
In a letter, C2 general manager Todd Muir said the daycare “complimented the C2’s operation and offered activities that could contribute to increasing weekday facility traffic.”
The partnership between the Centennial Centre and Happy House Daycare was a highlight for Coun. Chad Colbourne.
“I just think it’s awesome that the C2 is working with the group to get this done,” he expressed.
Squire hopes to have the Bonnyville location opened by August, but that's up in the air.
“Then this all happened with COVID-19, and now we just have to take little baby steps to make sure that we’re able to do everything that we can. As soon as we get the word that we can open up, and my licensing says fine, we’ll start rolling out.”
The wing that Happy House Daycare will eventually take over is temporarily being used by Bonnyville Centralized High School while the school undergoes renovations. In the meantime, the daycare will start with two rooms in the C2 and expand when they're able to.
“When the high school is completed, we’ll start taking the other rooms and we’ll have the whole wing,” noted Squire.
They also plan to build a fenced-in playground outside for the children to utilize.
Council asked whether or not parking would become an issue, which director of planning and development Katherine Currie didn’t believe was going to be a problem.
“It’s only a few stalls they’re taking… It’s not a large area that’s not going to hamper any of the parking requirements.”
The town has submitted an application for the Bonnyville Daycare to open for essential workers. Happy House Daycare's Cold Lake locations have already been approved by the province and could provide another option in town.
“She would be able to accommodate additional children if we get approved by the province for a daycare for essential service (workers),” detailed Currie.
She added, “Right now, the province is allowing daycares to have a maximum of 30, which includes children and staff. That brings down the number of children that can be placed in the daycare. If our regular daycare also gets approval, this would give us an option to have a second site for children of a younger age if our application gets approved.”
According to Squire, Happy House Daycare’s two locations in Cold Lake are currently the only ones in northern Alberta that are allowed to be open. Due to provincial restrictions, the south facility can only have school-aged children while their north branch is for younger children.
Since reopening on April 14, 16 children are registered for the daycare and Squire sees those numbers continuing to rise in the coming weeks.
“I’m hoping we’re going to fill up and, if we do, they’ll know the need is there and then they’ll have to open up more centres,” Squire noted.
Happy House Daycare was launched in 2008 in Squire's basement. Once the daycare in town is up and running, the regular opening hours would be Monday to Thursday from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Fridays from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
