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Child Care Center receives donation

Fergus Falls Daily Journal - 9/19/2018

Sept. 19--As the Battle Lake Area Child Care Center nears completion, the capital campaign team races to close a funding gap, which includes the costs of paving the parking lot, fire alarm monitoring and security systems, hook up to City sewer, and a cupola.

This week, The Otto Bremer Trust helped close that gap with a timely and significant award of $100,000 to assist with construction to Battle Lake Youth Center Inc (BLYCI) --the nonprofit that is bringing the child care center to the area. This is the third time that the team has applied for this grant and they are grateful to have finally received it.

BLYCI and the capital campaign team are grateful to The Otto Bremer Trust as well as the Bremer Trust as well as the hundreds of people inside and outside the community -- foundations, businesses, churches, service organizations, families and individuals--who have helped make the dream of a child care center in the area come true.

Gary and Karalyn Harrington, co-chairs on the capital campaign team, are excited to finally see all of their hard work come to fruition. Gary said, "It's awesome. The emotional part is that I just can't imagine the day we have an open house." The two have enjoyed the process of putting everything together. "Definitely excited to be getting to the end of the capital campaign," Karalyn said. "One thing we have really enjoyed is working with this cross-generational team."

The child care center is expected to open in the middle of October Tiny Tykes, the team that will be staffing and running the facility will begin with 8-10 children and continue to add from there. "We want to do this right," Gary said.

The two noted that Patti Johnson, from First Lakes Agency in Battle Lake and on the executive committee of the board of directors and has been instrumental to the progress of the center. "I can't imagine if Patti hadn't been involved," Gary said. "We couldn't have had a better general contractor than Dan Barbre," Gary said in regards to how quickly the construction process has gone. Gary and Karalyn want to remind everyone how there are two sides of work--getting funding and the construction. Karalyn said, "We want to make sure that everybody realizes that there have been two teams working in parallel to pull this off."

The Otto Bremer Trust moves us closer to the end goal, but we're not quite there yet. Those who would like to help close the remaining gap can still do so. To make a tax-deductible pledge or donation, stop by First National Bank and pick up a donation form or send to BLYCI, P.O. Box 303, Battle Lake, MN 56515. It's not too late to make a difference. Follow the Battle Lake Area Child Care Center on Facebook.

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(c)2018 the Fergus Falls Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, Minn.)

Visit the Fergus Falls Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, Minn.) at www.fergusfallsjournal.com

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