From serving eight children to international influence, this child-care center owner’s venture paid off
By Dawn Wolfe
Lois Rosenberry
According to Children’s Discovery Centers’ founder Lois Rosenberry, she started her business in 1982 on literally a hope and a prayer when she followed the urgings of parents whose children she had worked with during her two years leading a church child-care program. “We were very poor,” Lois said. “My daughter was receiving free school lunches, we were on home energy assistance, and I was eight months pregnant with my third child.” Lois even took out a second mortgage on their home to finance her new business.
“My chances for succeeding…were not very good,” she remembered, laughing. “But I had a handful of loyal clients and when I opened, I was serving eight children.” Today, Children’s Discovery Center operates eight locations, has started a kindergarten and elementary school, and serves approximately 1,400 children in Toledo and the surrounding area.
But just like her beginning, the road to success was not a completely smooth one for Lois. “I think my niche emerged in 1987, when a large competitor moved in. I was pretty upset because I was thinking, ‘This is my community. This is where I provide childcare.’ But my accountant wisely told me to use the competition as a positive opportunity to create something unique – to overwhelm people with value.”
Lois took that advice, going to New York City to attend a major conference on child care, also attended by high-ranking Pentagon officials, US Senators, then-Governor Bill Clinton, and others. “I met some people from the Pentagon, and they wanted to know why a small provider from Toledo would be there,” Lois laughed. “I told them I wanted to surround myself with the best.” Impressed with her ability to offer first-class child-care services for far less money than the government was spending on equal services, Pentagon representatives came to Toledo to study Lois’ organization.
That connection led, almost by accident, to Lois’ discovery of one of the major principles she has since used to guide the way her business works with children. While in Denver to “secret shop” a child-care center at the request of her Pentagon associates, Lois’ thirteen-year-old daughter noticed a sign for a children’s museum and suggested they stop by.
“When I saw the look of excitement on the faces of the children in that museum, I knew I’d found it,” Lois said. Inspired by her travels to children’s museums throughout the United States, Lois opened a new facility in 1989 that included a fifteen-foot dinosaur, a rocket ship, and other colorful, shiny and otherwise exciting things to catch the children’s attention. “We had a lot of media attention,” Lois said, “and our open house attracted more than 500 people – they were lined up – and within two months that center was completely full and had a long waiting list.”
Lois was not finished yet. After reading in Newsweek in 1991 that the best child care in the world was being provided in Italy, Lois went there and ultimately brought back and incorporated the principles of project-based learning at her own facilities. “I’m still constantly looking for ways to make us the best we can be, and bring our community the best models of child care possible,” she said. Lois is also expanding into more formal educational programs, with a kindergarten and a school that started out in 2011 with a first and second grade. “We hope to add a grade every year up ‘til the sixth grade,” she explained.
Even with her huge success, Lois has continued to face a few setbacks. When she wanted to open a Children’s Discovery Center in Columbus, for example, she said she was denied a loan from the Small Business Administration because her business is Christian-based. During the lawsuit over that loan – which Lois won – she was faced with the irony of being named the SBA Businessperson of the Year for northwest Ohio. Unfortunately, winning the lawsuit did not make it possible for her to open her center, as someone else claimed the property before Lois was ready to buy.
In addition to operating her eight locations, Lois has written and published a book with her daughters and two colleagues about the importance of providing aesthetically beautiful environments in child-care settings. Children’s Discovery Centers offer visitation during which child-care professionals from throughout the United States and beyond get a first-hand look at how the centers implement the seven design principles that Lois has created through her extensive travels and studies. A second book helps child-care professionals rate the environments they are creating. Her business has also accepted a contract to train child-care professionals at US Air Force bases in Korea, Japan, and Alaska.
Looking back, Lois is deeply grateful that she took the advice of that first group of parents and opened Children’s Discovery Center. Thirty years later, her business ranks 43rd among the largest for-profit child-care companies in North America. More importantly, Lois said that she is hugely proud of her graduates, many of whom have gone on to exciting careers in professions where they are making huge contributions to their communities.
If you have found this story interesting, informative, or inspiring, please let Lois know! Children’s Discovery Center operates eight locations in Toledo and the surrounding areas. You can contact her at 419-867-8570, or visit the website at www.childrensdiscoverycenters.com.
