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New childcare center opens in Hancock

HANCOCK — A new childcare center has come to the Copper Country with the focus on early development, accessibility and affordability.

The Right Start Kids Academy through Right Start UP, is a non-profit center that was licensed and opened this spring, serving infants to age five.

Currently, seven kids are enrolled in the program with space for up to 22.

According to Ruth Ryynanen, vice-chair, the center came about in response to a community need and something she wanted as a mother.

Right Start was opening at a time when many home daycares were closing. A center based around early development, with more flexible 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. hours and affordability, it seemed like the ideal solution.

“My belief is that young kids can live up to the potential that we don’t even realize,” said Director Heather McGee.

She taps that potential using research from occupational and speech therapy as well as behavioral psychologists. McGee tries to teach kids to learn, preparing them for kindergarten and success in school, working in imagination play and socialization skills.

“I’m big into keeping ages together,” she said. “We have our separate times of course, but interaction between all of the ages sets examples for the kids on what they can learn from them and they mimic that. So they see an older kid going down the slide or doing something kind of fun and crazy that one-year-old is going to try to go down the slide and do something fun and crazy.”

The center is pushing to help the kids reach their full potential and set them up for success in school by catching them within the age of zero to five, a crucial time for a child’s development, said Ryynanen.

“The next thing that we want to (do), the next need we want to meet, we’re already meeting the availability need, the next is the affordability need,” said Ryynanen. “Because we are a non-profit organization, after paying our employees, all of the money is going back into the center. So as soon as we’re able to, as soon as we actually start making money, we are going to invest that into our parents.”

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