For as long as I can remember there was one passion in my life that everything else revolved around; becoming a teacher. As children, my brother and I would play school. I was in third grade and he in preschool. Naturally, I was always the teacher. I would teach my brother letters and numbers by writing them on my bedroom windows with markers. I even had an old-school desk where I would keep my “supplies.” As I got older, I loved going to the teacher stores and fantasizing about my future career.
Eventually Ralph grew older and no longer would be my student, so I found new “students” at the local elementary school. Throughout high school I participated in Future Teachers of America. Every week I would spend a few afternoons volunteering in the classrooms. My senior year I was accepted at The University of Maine at Farmington. I was ecstatic to start my teaching education! After a semester, though my passion for teaching didn’t cool, my interest in attending UMF did. I missed my family and my boyfriend. I transferred to University of Southern Maine the following semester. USM did not offer an education degree so I opted for another interest of mine, accounting. A few years went by and I married, bought a house and had a great career start in the investments field; then I had my first child. After that, I decided to do what I always dreamed of and become a teacher. I hoped to have the best of both worlds, my career dream and stay home with my son.
I enrolled at Andover in the late summer of 2003 and opened my family child care. With every class I took and every day working from home I knew I had made the right decision. I graduated in 2005, right before the birth of my second son.
Fast forward to 2018 and I still couldn’t imagine a better career for me! I first obtained national accreditation in 2007 and have since renewed three times. I now have 3 employees and 12 children every day. In 2015, Shunk Child Care, became the first in the State of Maine to obtain outdoor classroom certification through Nature Explore. In 2018 we were endorsed as an Eco-Healthy Child Care through the Children’s Environmental Health Network. Family child care is my calling and I am enjoying every moment of it.
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Shunk Child Care 