Borrower Profile: Little Feet Children's Center

Owner: Christine Tullgren

Christine Tullgren has opened a different kind of child care facility. While the North Thetford center still provides high-quality care for children ages six weeks to six years, Little Feet Children’s Center has received a unique certification for providing an eco-friendly, healthy environment.

“We have received an Eco-Healthy Child Care Endorsement,” she says. “The model was created by the Oregon Environmental Council, but since then it’s trickled into some of Canada and most of the United States.” There are a total of 887 endorsed child care providers in the country and Vermont is the first state to have a “green” child care center.

An Eco-Healthy Endorsement means that, at Little Feet Children’s Center, Christine follows specific steps:

• Stays away from use of “plastics” as much as possible (the few that exist are phthalate-free – a chemical that can be harmful to children)
• Furniture and toys are made of high-end wood
• Uses non-toxic cleaners
• Purchases only items made in the United States

“It’s harder than you think to find U.S.-made products,” she says. “It was a very time-consuming process to find the appropriate furniture and toys – we ended up finding quality USA-made products from Maine and Pennsylvania.”

Parental reaction has been nothing but positive. Vermont’s WCAX-TV Channel 3 did a news story on Little Feet Children’s Center back in January and interviewed one of the parents who is also a local pediatrician. “It’s hip to be green but it takes a lot of energy to really follow through with it,” says parent Rebecca Yukica. “And I feel Christine has really followed through with it.”

Happily, finding the capital she needed to “follow through with it” was a lot easier than Christine thought it would be. “I was nervous, in the present economy, to get a loan,” she says. “But it was nice to have the Loan Fund there – I didn’t realize how necessary their work is in Vermont, especially to the child care industry.”

Little Feet is licensed for 20 children and Christine currently employs three staff full-time and one part-time.

“In Vermont, it’s getting harder and harder to find care for infants and toddlers – I’m glad our center can help in that regard, and I’d also like to connect with other child care centers about the green effort so that all of our kids can play in as healthy environment as possible.”

Visit the Oregon Environmental Council’s website at: www.oeconline.org/our-work/kidshealth/ehcc