Day care, preschool expanding into former urgent care clinic

By Laura Kostad for Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business

My Little Planet Learning Center and Child Care Center of Kennewick recently acquired a new building for its growing preschool and day care operations.

The property at 3000 W. Kennewick Ave. has been vacant with “No Trespass ing” signs taped up in the windows for the past few years. It was a Trios urgent care clinic before closing in 2017.

Now, the 5,340-square-foot building built in 1991 is in the process of being reenvisioned and redesigned to become a preschool and child care center. TJ’s Gen eral Contractors LLC of Pasco is the gen eral contractor for the $479,000 project.

My Little Planet owners Ana and Si mon Samaniego are the new building owners. They bought the building on a bargain and sale deed for $700,000. The value for the property in 2022 was $903,500. Homesnap.com reported the list price had originally been set at $1.15 million.

“Currently, we are working on the plan to make rooms, close rooms and open areas so the kids can have good space,” Ana said. The empty building has a network of offices, exam rooms and other spaces better suited to a medical care facility.

Transforming the space

The Samaniegos aren’t new to converting spaces for their needs.

My Little Planet began in 2012 as an in-home day care that Ana started when her kids were small.

They converted their garage to support more space for the day care. Then, as their family and budding business grew, they moved into a bigger house and later acquired another house – and later another.

The two additional properties became what are today the My Little Planet Learning Center (a preschool) at 316 S. Auburn St. and Child Care Center (a day care) at 711 E. Eighth Ave., both in Kennewick.

Samaniego said that in addition to the potential to grow, she saw the need to move the hub of operations somewhere more centralized. She feels that the new location will attract a broader customer base, in addition to offering full-service day care resources in a part of town that doesn’t have many options presently.

“It’s not an easy business, but the best you can do is to help others, to help the kids,”

Ana grew up working in her parents’ grocery store in Mexico where she says she developed her customer service and interpersonal

Of expanding My Little Planet, she said, “I want to grow because I found my passion, I found my career and I love

Ana said some families have been with Little Planet for eight-plus years as their kids grow up and cycle through the programs.

The My Little Planet website touts that it was one of the first day care centers to be accredited by the Washington Early Achievers Quality Rating Program, joining in 2014.

From September to June, it uses Teaching Strategies Gold curriculum, which, according to the My Little Planet website, is “practically based on creating a community in the classroom, taking a positive guide in the behavior of the children, teaching intentionally and responsibly, always evaluating the learning of the children.”

My Little Planet offers preschool in both English and Spanish.

“I want to make smart kids,” Ana said. “The kids have fun and learn another language, it’s good for their brains … The best time to teach the kids is when they’re zero to 5 years old.”

She said the most heartwarming moments come when the kids help each other out and watching how they become like family to one another in the homelike environment that My Little Planet provides.

High-quality fresh food is another way the Samaniegos bring their pupils together.

She said her husband, Simon, a registered nurse, enjoys shopping for the fresh fruits and vegetables that make up much of their meals and that the kids love to eat.

“All the love you can give to the kids –they aren’t your kids, but you love them, and it helps them to grow,” She said.

“Two things I have to do always is make the kids feel secure and make the parents feel secure … They trust in you that you’re there, so they are safe going to work and nothing’s going to happen,” she added.

The couple hope to open the new facility within three to four months.

Ana said they applied for a Washington state grant to help cover some of the overhead startup costs.

“If the state helps, then we can make better facilities. We will make this one nice and start fixing up the other ones,” she said.

She said Gesa Credit Union helped finance the purchase.

My Little Planet plans to hire additional teachers for the new facility, and Ana noted that they will require degrees. She’s working on her own, taking classes at Columbia Basin College to complete a bachelor’s degree.

Go to: mylittleplanetlearningcenter. com.

Senske acquires Virginia-based company

Senske Services has acquired the Virginia-based National Turf Service.

Senske is a residential lawn care, pest control and home services company with locations around the country, including in Kennewick. It’s expanding nationwide by actively seeking partnerships with lawn care companies, Senske officials said in a statement. This is Senske’s fifth acquisition in 2023 and the seventh overall since it received investment from the private equity firm GTCR. National Turf is being rebranded as Blades of Green, a division of Senske.

United Way announces grant awards to help support kids

United Way of Benton & Franklin Counties has awarded $330,000 in grants to 17 programs that support kids in the community. The grants run from July 2023 to June 2025 and total $10,000 to $30,000 each.

The 17 programs — run by about a dozen local agencies — address basic needs, student success or childhood health and wellness. Grant recipients were chosen from a pool of 40 proposals.

United Way announced the recipients, along with the winners of its Spirit of Philanthropy Awards, during a breakfast event on July 11.

The 2023-25 grant recipients are:

• Benton Franklin Head Start for its social and emotional learning and family well-being programs.

• Domestic Violence Services of Benton and Franklin Counties for its Safe Space Kids program.

• Partners for Early Learning for its Resilient Parents, Resilient Kids program.

• Second Harvest for its Healthy Food Access program.

• Support, Advocacy & Resource Center for its crisis program.

• The Arc of Tri-Cities for its advocacy, Buddy Club and children’s services programs.

• Upper Columbia Mission Society of Seventh-day Adventist for its diaper bank program. regulations. The average manufacturer in the United States pays nearly double that amount: $19,564 per employee.

• Catholic Charities Serving Central Washington for its parent-child interaction therapy and its on-site schoolbased mental health services.

• Forge Youth Mentoring for its Kids Crave Connection program.

• Heartlinks for its pediatric palliative care program.

• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Washington for its Ending the Silence program.

• B5 (formerly called Family Learning Center) for its afterschool program. (See story about this nonprofit on page B5.)

• The Reading Foundation for its rural outreach for access to reading.

Small manufacturers, or those with fewer than 50 employees, incur regulatory costs of $34,671 per worker, which is more than three times the cost borne by the average U.S. company.

The point is new laws, such as the Chips and Science Act of 2022, are helpful if they are allowed to work and not buried under mountains of regulations.

The president would be wise to heed the recommendations in the manufacturers’ letter. Washington and Oregon elected officials should take a close look at the investments now landing in Arizona and Ohio and ask why they are not coming here.

Don C. Brunell is a business analyst, writer, and columnist. He retired as president of the Association of Washington Business, the state’s oldest and largest business organization, and now lives in Vancouver. He can be contacted at theBrunells@msn.com

The Seattle Times Save the Free Press public service initiative.

At the end of the first round of questions, the top five students advanced to a second round in which they gave speeches about a problem facing our society and their proposed solution to it. The judges asked questions about their ideas and assigned scores.

For winning first place, Wu received a $1,000 cash prize and two tickets from Alaska Airlines to fly to Washington, D.C., to continue his civics education. Devin Spector-Van Zee, a homeschooled sixth-grader, received $500 for second place, and Ye Joon Ameling, a sixth-grader at Vancouver iTech Preparatory in Vancouver, received $250 for third place.

It was fun watching the excited reaction of the students when the winners were announced. And it was gratifying to be part of an effort that seeks to energize America’s civic life.

Kris Johnson is president of the Association of Washington Business, the state’s