Childcare Keeps Missouri Working
September 26, 2025
Childcare Keeps Missouri Working
Before we get into our next series, we’d like to share a bit of background about how it came to life. WEPOWER and HOSTL teamed up to amplify the stories of educators and families who are part of the childcare community. Families with children aged zero to five navigate a system starting at birth that is complex, expensive, and inaccessible. Childcare providers and workers are on the frontlines no matter what — during COVID, during the tornado, and catastrophe after catastrophe — so parents can go to work, provide for their families, and keep our economy running. WEPOWER wanted to make sure their stories are told. Through this collaboration, we'll be releasing a handful of stories over the next few months. We hope you get an opportunity to learn more about what it’s like to be a parent of a child who is five years old or younger, and what it’s like to care for those children at early childhood centers throughout St. Louis.
“In early childcare, we say, ‘A child only needs one person in their corner to change their life.’ I didn’t have a great childhood. But I had people who changed the trajectory of my life just because they cared about me. I grew up in a small neighborhood in North St. Louis on Prescott Avenue, off North Broadway. My mother was a single parent and an alcoholic, so I became the mom. I cooked, cleaned, and made sure everyone in the house was good. A church van came around and frequently took my siblings and me to church. At some point, our neighbors, Don and Debbie Sharp, got saved, and I became even more involved in church. The couple took me everywhere, did everything with me, and kept me out of a neighborhood that wasn’t great. Eventually, the church sent me away to Bible school so I could be in a different environment, and that was impactful. Then, when I was in high school, my birth mother died in a fire, and the Sharps adopted me. They gave me a family and protected me. But when I went back to school after she died, I felt the weight of being the oldest child in my family. I wanted to talk to my friends, but they didn’t know how to respond. And I couldn’t wait to just go home and cry. My favorite teacher would stand up for me by writing encouraging words in my journal. I can see how people caring for me changed the outcome of my life. That’s what we try to do with children here.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
: Kiara Fite
“I’ve worked in early childcare for over 30 years. I know that because my children are 30, and I started a couple of years before that. I originally studied to be a kindergarten teacher because I wanted to be that ‘first’ teacher for children. Then, I got a job at La Petite Academy childcare center, where I became a teacher for two-year-olds, and I just fell in love with them. Eventually, I felt called to open a childcare program at the Church of God at Baden. This space was originally for baptisms and fellowship dinners, but was never used. So I presented the idea to the deacons, who said they’d pray on it. At the time, they believed the congregation and parishioners should focus their tithes and offerings directly on the church. It took them some time to decide on my idea. Now, we’re incorporated and owned by the church. But back then, we tried to be conscious of whether we even needed a childcare center in this area. My adoptive dad was the pastor when we were founded, and we knocked on all the doors of the five existing childcare centers in Baden on Broadway. Most were hesitant and didn’t let us in. One lady down the street, Ms. Ruby, let us come into her center. Outside her childcare, though, the ones that let us in were in poor condition or didn’t have quality services. So we didn’t understand why they were licensed. I believe every child deserves a great and quality start. I grew up in a zip code where I didn’t have that. I’ve always wanted to work in underserved areas because that’s where I came from. So we opened Baden Christian Child Care Center on my birthday, September 14, 1998.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
🎙️: Kiara Fite
📷: Lindy Drew
“In the past 27 years, I estimate we’ve cared for 800+ kids, and many of our families have returned over and over again. This is a photo of our first kids. Two are my own children. Another one of our first kids ended up working here, and her child came here. I worked here by myself for two months with our first baby, Monay, whose son now goes here, too. We serve infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, but we also offer before and after-care for some school-aged kids. So we serve children from birth to 12, but a majority are under five. We’re considered a small center with an average of 30 kids.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
📷: Kiara Fite and Lindy Drew
“We do a lot here, but we focus on three core things for the kids.
One, we see food as fuel for their bodies. One hundred percent of our kids are subsidized, meaning the state pays for at least a portion of their childcare. If they qualify for the subsidy, they qualify for the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which is like free and reduced lunches, meaning we can feed our kids at no cost to their families. And why wouldn’t we feed them the best food? We serve fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. We even have our own garden. There’s no sugar in our building, so no juice. Just good food. In this neighborhood, there’s no grocery store. Some people have to go to the gas station. Since our kids don’t typically have access to fresh food, we make sure they get that here. We also encourage them to try foods in different ways and give it a couple of tries, like our ‘two bite club.’ We used to have to hide the squash in the spaghetti. Now kids are like, ‘That’s my zucchini. I grew that!’
Two, we want the kids to enjoy learning. We make it fun so they become lifelong learners. Our curriculum, The Creative Curriculum, is state-approved and developmentally appropriate, from infants to preschool. And it’s a hands-on approach to learning, even for the babies. So it gradually moves from things like tummy time to mirrors and smiling. Or rolling a ball, to then walking, to then kicking the ball, and, eventually, spelling the word ‘ball.’ Every six months, we do assessments of the kids with their parents. Instead of doing a training, we sit down with parents to discuss what developmental stages are, where their child should be, and how we can help them get there.
Finally, we teach children social-emotional skills so they learn how to get along, and they learn to talk about their feelings rather than fighting and being violent.
If we can do those three things, we’ve done our job.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
📷: Kiara Fite and Lindy Drew
“When I turned 50 during COVID, I stayed home for almost a month to decide what I wanted to do next with my career. My children were done with school and moved out, and I was an empty nester with three cats and a husband. It was a good time to go into another field, make more money, have good insurance, and a 401(k). All those things that we usually don’t have as professionals in the childcare sector. Ultimately, I couldn’t leave childcare though because I want this field to be better. I want to ensure that the next generation of childcare workers won’t have to fight as hard as we do to get people to view childcare as education and not babysitting. Since that moment, I’ve become more involved in advocacy. Advocacy is about building relationships with everyone, whether you agree or disagree with them. So when you have to ask for something, it’s easier because you’ve built that relationship.
Well, I was on a Zoom call where WEPOWER was talking about a tax incentive called Prop R. I didn’t know what it meant, but I asked to get involved. During COVID, Prop R passed in the City of St. Louis, which meant a 6-cent property tax increase would go towards social-emotional support for early childcare. I was involved in phone banking, door-knocking, dropping off signs, and showing up at rallies. There are a lot of people who don’t want to talk to you when you’re door-knocking. But when you ease into it and ask other things, you begin to understand that most people want to help the kids. That’s when I’d share my childcare elevator pitch. Then, I started going to Jefferson City once a month. I’ve been so busy recently that I haven’t been going as much. I haven’t gotten to see Governor Mike Kehoe yet. He’s from Baden, and I’ve got a lot to say to him.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
📷: Kiara Fite
“We childcare workers are very protective about people coming into our spaces because we’re afraid that something won’t look right, and we’re always scrutinized on the news. But people don’t see all the wonderful things that happen. They mostly hear about the bad things. We always want any politician to be able to come into our childcare center to see the good work we’re doing. Children are our future. And we need funding in order to give good services. We partnered with Beginning Futures, another childcare program in the city, which had a three-year grant through Prop R. As a result, our three- to five-year-olds received free, individualized therapy. And we’d use our nursery and breastfeeding room for the therapist to work with kids dealing with trauma. She would bring a buddy for them, so it felt more like play therapy. Our kids deal with a lot of trauma, and that’s why it’s always helpful to have continued support.
Prop R has been great for giving teachers more social-emotional tools, too. All our staff were able to get Conscious Discipline training and on-site coaches for three years. Those trainings can cost thousands of dollars per person. I went to one, it was about $666 for two days, and Prop R paid for it all. I want to offer Conscious Discipline training at my center forever, but I know I can’t afford it. After the second year of the grant, we received data indicating that 38% of the kids in St. Louis City met the social-emotional standards. We’re not big math people in this field, so we thought that was a low number. But looking back, it used to be at 18%.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
📷: Kiara Fite
“The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education moves too slowly. In the past, I’d email the same letter every month to our state representatives about what we needed as members of the childcare community. And that’s also what advocacy looked like. Now it’s showing up in spaces, trying to learn from people, and getting the facts so I am equipped to be an even more powerful advocate. For example, for every dollar invested in childcare, there’s about a $14 return. Our state and region miss out on millions, maybe even billions, because we are not investing in our children. Think about how that would help our economy. Tuition costs approximately $20,000 a year for a preschooler to be in childcare with a degree-earning teacher. Childcare workers don’t get paid anything near that. When looking at what we’re paid, it’s a lot better than it used to be. And soon we’re going to get paid based on enrollment, whereas right now we’re paid on attendance. So if a kid isn’t at our center, we’re not generating as much income even though we’re still here working hard and caring for other children.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
📷: Kiara Fite
“The tornado gave us some busted windows and caused our ceiling to collapse in the church. I had surgery that Thursday, right before, and my doctors told me not to return to work until Monday. Well, I was off before that, and I felt great, so I came into work on Friday. But I started feeling tired, and my staff told me to go home. I left around 1:30 p.m. and got home at 2:00 p.m. when the tornado started. I was looking at the center’s Ring camera, and it looked bad outside, but I couldn’t hear sirens. I told everyone there to take cover. It happened so fast. Thank God no one was hurt.
Around 40 childcare providers were impacted, though, and they closed down immediately. A lot of them closed because of no power or other damage. Right away, lots of early childhood stakeholders came together to help. Our childcare center transformed into a tornado hub for early childcare providers, which made sense because we were a hub during COVID. Everybody was here trying to figure out what could be done. We helped with supplying food, boarding things up, tarping the centers, and giving them generators. A majority of providers were able to open in a couple of weeks, but some didn’t make it. Miss Bettie, who was a home provider for over 40 years, doesn’t have her license anymore. She couldn’t renew it because her childcare center was closed. Now those families she served don’t have childcare, so the parents can’t work. And since it was her home and business, she was both displaced and lost her income. She just misses her babies.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
📷: Kiara Fite
“There’s a saying: ‘Childcare keeps Missouri working.’ It’s true. You can’t work without us. Childcare matters because it impacts not just the children, but families, neighborhoods, and the economy. COVID reminded us that we need childcare for people to go to work. If a childcare center isn’t open and operational in an underserved area, a mom can’t work. If she misses work, she loses her job. If she loses her job, she can’t afford her car. Then she’s moving in with someone else, or she’s going to be homeless. We see this happen a lot, and it can cause so much trauma. Centers have to be kept open. If not, it impacts everybody. I don’t want to say that we’re the engine that keeps everything running, but essentially, we are.
Everyone has a right to public school. So everyone should have access to quality education from birth to five. When we start investing in education, we’ll see so many things change. My friend always says, ‘You’re going to pay for childcare one way or the other.’ You’re going to pay for it up front and see the good things, or you’re going to pay for it later when those kids become adults. What kinds of things happen because of the trauma in a child’s life? To break that cycle, we need more funding for early childhood education. As someone who didn’t have a great early start, I would love to see childcare as a civil right in a place where there’s joy.”
Lisa Scheer, Director, Baden Christian Child Care
🎙️: Kiara Fite
📷: Lindy Drew