Portage Day Care celebrates five decades

Fifty years ago, the Portage Day Care started out pretty small in St. Mary's Anglican Church. Fifty years later, the day care is thriving, with four centres in the community.

Executive Director Lisa Voth says child care has always been important.

"When we first started out, we, I believe, had about 20 children that were registered in the daycare and we have grown to about 150 children," says Voth. "Even back in 1972, moms were looking for care for their children, and we've just come along and grown and developed and we've been able to provide an essential service for people in the community for that long."

Voth says they enjoy seeing people who used to be day care kids back in the day, say hi, when they walk by. She says some people, who were day care kids, now have kids who are day care kids.

Looking ahead, they believe the future is bright. Voth says they have a few goals.

"Developing some of the centres that we have, and improving on those, would be great," says Voth. "I'd love to see our staffing issues go away. So, I'm really excited that the government has put in some standards for decent pay and training so that we can continue to have quality care."