Meet Dovely
I chatted with Karyn Becker about Dovely Daycare and its mission to serve. Enjoy!
How does Dovely serve our community?
We provide accessible childcare and growth potential jobs for resettling [refugee] families and the broader community.
Everything you assume is a barrier to resettling in the United States is there, but there’s two interrelated problems at the crux of all the other barriers: accessible childcare and growth potential jobs. Resettling families (and other low income families) qualify for childcare vouchers, but many childcare providers will not take them. And, you need childcare to be able to hold a job. There’s also a shortage of high quality certified early education professionals.
At Dovely, we provide high quality licensed childcare, reserving at least 50% of our spots for those with childcare vouchers. We also run an apprenticeship program where we can hire a resettling woman to be a care provider while she earns college credits and works towards her state certification to be a teacher. We’ve had three women graduate from the program, and two more will graduate by the end of the year! This works out financially because we’re able to rent underutilized space from local churches, who also get the opportunity to help this community in need.
Where do you see courage at Dovely?
Our team members have immense courage to restart, to be constantly uncomfortable. By legal definition of being a refugee, you weren’t planning to leave wherever home was! We have team members with multiple degrees in their home country, now having to start completely over, learning a language, a new regulatory environment, a new job. It’s scary enough to begin a new job as an American, let alone a refugee.
What can we learn from the Dovely community?
People are so capable if you take the time to help! These big systems are not meant to recognize and cultivate the value in people. Dovely is designed to be small centers in small local churches, small groups of humans latching on to each other to grow together. In that small, tailored environment, team members and children flourish.
How can we help?
We have an Amazon wishlist. We go through gloves and baby wipes like you wouldn’t believe! You can also donate toward a woman’s tuition–we’ve worked really hard to stretch $750 to get someone’s full certification. And of course, attend our birthday party–we’d love to meet you. If you want to bring us a birthday gift, bring a package of baby wipes!