New Sullivan child care center seeks to grow

Nov. 29—SULLIVAN — A new child care program in the area wants to see kids grow by safely immersing them in the outdoors while also getting them engaged in activities that teach life lessons.

Husband and wife Nicholas and Alicia Perra founded Sapling Acres Preschool in June, serving primarily infants, toddlers and children up to age 5. Nicholas said the program welcomed its first kids earlier this summer.

"We do about a mile walk daily unless it's under 20 degrees, we do a lot of throwing rocks in rivers [and] doing arts and crafts with sticks and leaves," Nicholas said. "We've got an outdoor sandbox, we've got slides so we did a lot of raking up piles of leaves and jumping into them."

Programming runs weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Perras' property in Sullivan, which Nicholas said is a 34-acre lot with trails and rivers he described as the "perfect sanctuary."

The program runs for 48 weeks of the year (the Sapling Acres' website will be updated soon to show planned closures) and is currently managed just by the couple.

The Perras also offer other children's services through Sapling Acres, like the Healthy Meal Program, which is an additional $10 charge a day to provide kids with snacks and a hot lunch, which kids learn to cook themselves, otherwise parents are asked to pack lunches. There's also a consignment shop, where the Perras both buy and sell clothing, books, toys and outdoor items for babies and young children.

"Families as well as us will put used child clothing and toys available at drop-off and pickup, so parents can look through and save some money," Nicholas said. "... We do offer swim lessons in the summer, but we're out of season right now."

Nicholas said Alicia also provides kids' haircuts if parents indicate they're interested in the service when they sign a waiver to register their child into the program. The Sapling Acres website also states the business offers professional photo shoots of individual children and their class in the fall and children's families in the spring.

Sapling Acres was partially born out of a desire to help increase child care accessibility in the Monadnock Region, Nicholas said, noting he knows family and friends who have entered their children into lengthy waitlists to find care.

The school's programs range from $75 a week for K-12 after-school care from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., to $300 a week for full-time infant care.

Nicholas serves as the program's director of operations. He said he left a job at C&S Wholesale Grocers in Keene after nine years of employment to help his wife start Sapling Acres.

"I decided it was time for me to be a part of that active change in our community," he said. "We're very passionate about being outdoors in general as a family and we wanted to socialize as well. This gave us kind of the empowerment to do that."

Alicia, meanwhile, is the program's director of child care and initially ran a nanny service after serving as the lead teacher at the Keene Family YMCA before she started Sapling Acres, according to Nicholas. He said she's also participated in a Vermont state-subsidized program in Brattleboro to support lower-income families in need of child care.

"We were watching a couple of kids in other people's homes ... and then she kind of expanded her services and started bringing full-time kids at our home where she could watch more children per hour," Nicholas said.

Sapling Acres is currently licensed to take care of up to 12 children full time and an additional five children if they are after-school participants — kindergartners through 12th-graders. The Perras have a two-year-old son, Jackson, who Nicholas said is among the children in their program. The school currently has about six openings.

As the business has gotten off the ground, Sapling Acres also has joined the Greater Keene and Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, connected with Monadnock United Way and participated in the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship's Business Lab program, through which the school earned several grants to buy educational material for the children.

If they can find commercial real estate space, the Perras plan to expand their business to Keene and hire more staff, which might include one full-time position supervising toddlers age 1-3 and several people to care for preschoolers age 3-5. Nicholas said he and Alicia are interested in working with a church to use space during the week that might otherwise be vacant.

"We're really open to any commercial real estate, preferably with some outdoor natural elements so we can retain that same philosophy," he said. "We're aiming to kind of have 30-60 kids in an expansion."

Trisha Nail can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or tnail@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter

@byTrishaNail.