Theressa and her husband (center) with their family.
CASE STUDY: FINANCE
Church Childcare | Walkertown
BY THE NUMBERS
Theressa Stephens built her child care business by following her heart and employing financial prudence. It has paid off for her family, students, staff and community.
heressa Stephens stepped into the corporate world a few decades ago, using her Winston-Salem State University business degree to land jobs in banking and health insurance. While they made sense financially, they never made her happy. “So, I told my husband this is what I want for me,” she says. “I quit my job and started a career in child care.” Stephens owns Church Childcare in the Winston-Salem suburb of Walkertown. She chose its name for specific reasons. “We’re believers of faith, and we wanted to be a representation of the church, and the church represents love,” she says. “We represent love to our community and to our staff and our students.” Starting more than 20 years ago in the family home’s garage, Stephens has grown Church Childcare to serve more than 1,000 children at two Poindexter Street locations, the second of which opened in 2018. Her success is grounded in her experience and abilities. In high school, she helped her grandmother babysit. “She kept all the children in our neighborhood and was wellknown in the community,” she says. She’s quick with numbers, too, calculating percentages in her head and visualizing charts and spreadsheets. She can turn loans into profits, and she doesn’t mind working long hours. Church Childcare began with four children. Its enrollment doubled when it became a licensed family home care provider. So, Stephens hired staff, and word spread further. “I couldn’t take these children fast enough,” she says. “My husband kind of managed the home, because there was such a demand and a wait list.” A loan from Durham-based Self-Help Credit Union, whose specialty is working with traditionally underserved communities,
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allowed Stephens to expand her business at a different location, where enrollment increased to 12. She was ready for her own building by spring 2004. “The initial plan was to get a loan, get a business plan then start building,” she says. “But construction was delayed because of winter.” When the building was finally ready, she had a month-old baby. “I had my infant in the office with me while we were enrolling students,” she says. “We went from 12 to 45 [students] in less than a year.” Stephens needed to raise an initial investment of about $800,000 for her building. “We had to put down 10%, and the loan was a Small Business Loan for minorities,” she says. “And the bank put down 50% and the [U.S. Small Business Administration] 40%. Somehow, the community knew we were interested in building a child care center, and the loan officer found out about us, and there was a mutual connection.”
We don’t like bills. We pay things off and don’t purchase a lot of unnecessary things that make bills. Most of our money goes to salaries and materials. -Theressa Stephens
The loan is almost paid off. She has about 35 staff members — teachers, administrators, floaters and cooks. About 75% of the business’s revenue goes toward paying their salaries, she says. Then there are bills and utilities. It all goes back to what Stephens learned in banking. “I have an annual budget, and I use the basic Microsoft Excel,” she says. “I also have a monthly budget to look at what we need on a
2021 NORTH CAROLINA SMALL BUSINESS HANDBOOK
