Little feet, big mission: Daycare overcomes major obstacles

1283
Children are all smiles while participating in educational activities at Molly's House of Little Feet. [Bryan Mordt]

The journey to open Molly’s House of Little Feet was a long one.

It started in 2011, when owner Amalia Clark quit a job in banking to pursue her calling in childcare. She started by caring for children in her home, four at a time.

Over time, she worked diligently — through many challenges and the pandemic — to realize her dream of opening a full-service daycare facility.

“It was amazing to be able to open our doors and welcome families in,” Clark recalled about the long-awaited opening date on Aug. 31. “It was overwhelming but exciting. This is what I worked so hard for.”

Molly’s House cares for 80 children, infants through 5-year-olds, some on a part-time basis. The children enjoy hot meals, care from a talented and dedicated staff, and instruction and guidance to prepare them for elementary school.

It’s a long way from the days of caring for four children in her home. There have been many struggles along the way for Clark.

Working toward a dream

In 2010, Clark and her family moved to Maricopa and by April of the next year, she’d changed careers and started caring for children.

The waitlist grew as she could only care for four children at home, according to state regulations. Her first attempt at a standalone facility turned into a series of frustrations. She purchased a mobile home and made what she thought were the necessary renovations to open her business.

“I turned the paperwork into the city, but that’s not what the city thought,” she said. “There were troubles with a new computer system, so they only had some of my paperwork. I ended up having to shut down. We were running at full speed. I thought we were on the road to success.

“By the time they let me know everything I needed to do, the mobile home I had was not going to be a mobile home anymore,” she continued. “I tried to build on that land, start from scratch. It was going to be over a million dollars and the bank said no. So, we scrapped that deal.”

Amalia Clark, owner of Molly’s House of Little Feet, makes a batch of grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids in her fully functional and up-to-code kitchen. [Bryan Mordt]
Clark returned to in-home childcare but kept pursuing a new site. She signed the paperwork in February 2020 for the facility on Porter Road, bordering the Santa Rosa Springs community. It was formerly a special-needs preschool. But COVID soon arrived, and the work required at the building presented its own set of challenges.

There were plumbing and electrical issues. The desire for a kitchen — to supply what Clark says is, at times, the only hot meal some children might receive in a day — meant additional changes.

“There were a lot of times I thought about throwing in the towel,” Clark admitted. The stress points, during this time, “were more on the financial side. We had already done everything we could do financially, so every time the contractor would come back and say, ‘We’ve run into this issue, or we have that issue,’ I would say I am going to just sell this place, make a little bit of money and do it that way.

“But looking at my kids and my grandkids and knowing that I had people waiting for me, that were rooting me on, there was no choice in quitting,” said Clark, adding she would get back up, dust herself off and keep moving along.

“At the end of the day, this was something I wanted to do. I’m not a quitter.”
Samantha Cochran, assistant director of the facility, has been with Clark six years.
“She went through a lot,” she said. “I’m so glad (Molly’s House) finally happened.”

A focus on family

Family plays a major role in Clark’s vision and determination.

She is the oldest of 12 children, with 10 living in the Phoenix area. Her father worked in the Army as a helicopter mechanic before becoming an entrepreneur with pool businesses in California and Arizona. Today, six of Clark’s brothers own and work in a separate Valley pool operation.

There is also a long history of military service, including Clark’s husband and two of their four sons. One of many special events at Molly’s House since its opening was a free pancake social on Veterans Day. Another was a Thanksgiving feast for the community.

“The military holds a real dear place in my heart,” Clark said. “At Thanksgiving, we wanted to provide a safe place, a warm place for people to have a meal, talk, meet new friends. I remember that my dad worked really hard to put that meal on the table for us.”

Today, family extends to the young people and their parents who rely on Clark.

The facilities at Molly’s House of Little Feet include nearly 3,000 square feet of play space. [Bryan Mordt]
“When doing this building, the biggest thing was building that gap between a ‘facility feel’ and a ‘family feel.’ When you walk in, I want you to smell pancakes, smell eggs, smell sausage, and feel like you are at home,” she emphasized. “They’re not just going to daycare; they’re going to their second home. Teachers are like co-parents.”

Catherine Burkhardt has experienced that family feeling with both of her sons — the oldest now in elementary school and the second at Molly’s House.

“What sold me on Molly’s in the first place was that preschool education with the home environment. When my oldest went to kindergarten,” she recalled, “his teacher thanked me for the knowledge he had. That was all Molly.”

But it goes beyond education.

“Molly knows the families, she knows the siblings, the parents, the grandparents,” Burkhardt added. “They are not just another child to her. I know they are getting that warm, loving relationship while I’m at work.”

Learning for the future

With a waiting list already in place, there are plans to expand.

The benefits, Clark said, will be bigger classrooms for current children and the addition of before- and after-school programs.

“I like structured chaos. Implementing a preschool environment wasn’t very hard,” she said. “I really want to get my children running into those kindergarten doors, not just with their education but with their behaviors, their manners, knowing how to say please, thank you, talking with their teachers and being respectful.”

Isabel Quezada works with pre-K children at Molly’s House. Starting this year, she’s been working with 2-year-olds. Each day is better than the previous, she said.

“I love being able to teach the kids their letters and numbers and having them go home and tell their friends what they learned,” Quezada said. “I’ve learned better techniques on how to teach each individual age.”

Both Quezada and Cochran cite the extended patience that comes with the role and the caring environment.

“I come from a big family,” said Cochran, a lifelong Maricopa resident. “I love the kids and watching them grow.”

And while Clark is thrilled with her current staff, she knows many will eventually move on. As she works to mentor them, she offered, “Won’t it be nice to put someone who has the work ethic, manners and common sense out into the workforce and help add to it?”

Don’t ever give up

So, was the extended journey to create Molly’s House and the exhausting days as a childcare provider worth the struggle? The answer comes as Clark happily high-fives her pre-K students as they line up and exit their classroom to go wash their hands. It’s undoubtedly just one sign of many that takes place during a typical day.

Clark said her story can be an example for others.

“Sometimes, we have a dream, but we too easily allow outside things to push us down instead of fighting or talking or communicating or trying to find, ‘OK, what else can we do?’ A lot of times it is thinking outside the box to make these dreams come true,” she said.

“For anybody, this can happen. You just have to keep getting back up. Don’t quit so easily. Don’t let the one thing that gets in your way (end your dream).”

Burkhardt, for one, is glad Clark worked so diligently to make her dream come true.

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said. “I told her if she had closed her doors, I would have had to quit my job because I didn’t trust my kids with anyone else.”

This story was first published in the March edition of InMaricopa magazine.