June 26, 2025

This piece is sponsored by EmBe.

The child care situation had become dire.

“It was an extreme limitation,” said Brooke Rollag, executive director of Lake Area Improvement Corp.

“Those in the workforce were having to make significant life changes or as employers had to create flexibilities to accommodate their young families. Employees maybe had babies in the office, worked extended hours or even changed shifts so mom or dad could be home.”

A community of 7,000, Madison was supported entirely by in-home child care providers, with no centers in town. A 2022 study revealed that Madison was 330 slots short of supplying enough care for its infants through 5-year-olds.

So Rollag, whose organization generally focuses on areas such as economic development and housing, found herself delving deeply into the need for child care.

“It’s about supporting our workforce,” Rollag said. “And it’s really basic math. We kept hearing it over and over that child care was our top need.”

In Harrisburg, school district Superintendent Tim Graf also saw the need to expand options for care.

With his teachers and staff, “more and more often, we were hearing about staff, especially with newborns, coming back from maternity leave and they were having problems finding day care,” he said. “I don’t think it’s any different than our community at large. It’s just indicative of the shortage we’re having of providers.”

For a couple of years, he looked for a way to expand access to care, “and one of the challenges was we didn’t want taxpayer money to fund anything, but we also didn’t know how to get from point A to point B,” he said.

Both Rollag and Graf found a willing partner in EmBe Education as they worked toward innovative, creative approaches to addressing their need for child care.

“I think we see things in a similar way, and it’s been really fun and rewarding working with both of them,” EmBe CEO Kerri Tietgen said.

“We can’t do it alone and solve this in an isolated bubble. Every week, I get calls asking if EmBe can open a center in various places, but without partnership, we are perpetuating an unsustainable business model. Madison and Harrisburg are showing there can be a different approach.”

Business community leads

In Madison, Rollag explored options for partnering with child care providers before gravitating to EmBe.

“In Madison, we didn’t have a space to accommodate a child care provider,” she said. “So we started to focus on, if we build it, can we attract a provider? An expert in the field? And so the partnership with EmBe became a pivotal point in our project. They can provide care for children, and they do it very, very well, allowing us to focus on the infrastructure needed to do it.”

That kicked off a $4.5 million fundraising campaign to build a facility, which is under construction and designed for 140 students. A $1 million donation from T. Denny Sanford and the state of South Dakota’s first Community Development Block Grant for child care funded part of the building, while the local business community contributed $2.4 million.

“It often gets talked about how the business community needs to be at the table, and I’m proud to say they’re here and stepped up in a big way,” Rollag said.

A USDA Rural Development loan backed by Heartland Energy allowed for zero percent interest for 10 years, saving hundreds of thousands in financing costs.

“EmBe doesn’t have to worry about a lease or mortgage. They just focus on families, and that helps our workforce eliminate barriers and burdens,” Rollag said.

“I think what really stood out to me is their commitment to families and their 100 years of experience. They’ve seen the peaks and valleys and were very honest about what they could do and have a deep, deep understanding of the business model.”

For EmBe, “Madison is unique in several ways,” Tietgen said. “They did their due diligence around demand and workforce capacity to support a center, and once the building is completed, the community is not stepping away. So it’s a really unique solution because every aspect of the community has come together to support this and make it successful.”

Madison also plans to form partnerships with students studying education, whether at Dakota State University or even at a high school level.

The center, which is scheduled to finish construction late this year, generates weekly inquiries.

“There’s a lot of excitement,” Rollag said. “People are over the moon excited because of the early education component and the social and emotional growth we’ll gain as a community because of this center. We’re so lucky to be partnering with EmBe and are truly grateful.”

Supporting educators

Harrisburg was able to expand its capacity for child care both by narrowing its niche and thinking broadly.

A $218,000 Workforce Education Grant from the South Dakota Department of Education is helping the new EmBe Education-Heritage child care center partner with high school child development classes and allow students to learn about the field while working alongside child care professionals from EmBe.

EmBe Education’s new child care center will be in the former Heritage Elementary building, and the grant will fund the necessary modifications and equipment to prepare it for caring for children from infants through age 5. Those children will have parents employed by the Harrisburg School District.

“While our staff will pay market rate for care, they won’t have to pay to reserve a spot when school is out and their children don’t need it,” Graf said. “It will be open 181 days with the school calendar, so it’s a huge savings for those who were paying year-round to keep a spot.”

EmBe already provides after-school and summer care in some Harrisburg elementary schools, so it was a natural progression for the relationship as “there’s a real comfort level and trust,” Graf said. “We’re excited from a recruitment and retention standpoint too. Often, once teachers begin having families, it’s harder to keep them, so I’m just excited to hear how it goes.”

The center will have capacity for about 100 children when it opens in the fall.

For EmBe, “this serves an important workforce by providing care for educators, plus the hours of operation are condensed, compared to our typical day at our other child care centers, so it appeals to a different workforce and allows us to provide staffing opportunities for parents who want to match a work schedule with when their child is in school,” Tietgen said.

“We also envision this being a laboratory for learning, so we’re excited to partner with the high school to make sure students have opportunities to learn and are getting hands-on experience as the next generation of caregivers.”

The broad themes from both projects are community involvement and revenue diversification, she added.

“I want our community to understand that these innovative solutions didn’t happen because the child care industry simply worked harder — EmBe has already been doing that. What made the difference was collaboration with people outside the child care field — people who care deeply about working families and wanted to create real change. That’s what sparked the innovation,” Tietgen said. “They’re excellent models for serving and finding change in our communities.”

Going forward, “the last piece of the puzzle for working families is continued solutions around diversifying revenue,” she added. “We need to make sure there are more revenue streams in addition to parent tuition to cover costs for families at all income levels. That’s where we need our community, state and cities to answer by funding child care scholarships.”

If you are a community member interested in joining forces with EmBe to support working families, please contact chief development officer Ravan Ackerman at rackerman@embe.org. Donate here to the EmBe Education Scholarship Fund and become a catalyst for positive change and an investor in the future of our children.

If you are a teacher or staff member in the Harrisburg School District, you can find information and enroll using your school email address at embe.org/embe-education-heritage.

If you are a family wishing to join the EmBe Education-Madison waitlist, please email Sadie Mudder at smudder@embe.org.  

For additional information about EmBe Education, visit embe.org/childcare, or call 605-336-3660 to schedule a tour at either EmBe Downtown or EmBe South.