It might seem like an unlikely pairing, but a financial institution on Newfoundland's southwest coast is being hailed for its years-long effort to build a new daycare.
"To hear the children laughing and the smell of muffins in the background, it was just quite overwhelming to be honest with you after three years of making this project come to a reality," says Cory Munden, CEO of Leading Edge Credit Union.
"It's going wonderful."
Growing Our Future Child Care Co-operative has been open for a few days, and is hiring early childhood educators so it can accept even more children at the facility than it currently has. The organization says it plans to offer 32 full-time spots.
Munden admits people might be puzzled about why a credit union laboured for years on the project, but for him, it boils down to what makes that type of financial institution unique in the first place.
"Credit unions are a co-operative and we operate under seven co-operative principles, and one of those principles is concern for community," he told CBC Radio's Corner Brook Morning Show.
"We wanted to to go out to the community and seek an opportunity where we could make a difference in our community. And in the Port aux Basques and surrounding area, child-care services was certainly lacking."
The town council provided the land, and the provincial and federal government also provided some funding, according to Munden. He said the credit union doesn't own the facility, since it's a co-operative.
"The role that we played as a credit union [was] facilitation," he said.
Many hurdles
Munden said it has been a long and sometimes bumpy road to opening. He questions some of the regulations required — like being required to replace regular-sized toilets with child-sized ones, at a cost of $4,700.
"These are the types of things that create barriers that stifle development and really need to be looked at," he said.
"We are not talking about jeopardizing safety here, but we're talking about things that don't quite make sense."
He said a multipurpose room in the centre is available to rent for any groups that need meeting space, which can also bring in revenue.
Munden said the upside to the project being complete is a template of sorts has been created for other groups that want to forge a similar type of partnership — but that should come with some long and deep thought.
"To another community looking at doing this, I would have to say quite strongly, be prepared to pull up your boots and do a lot of work … prior to getting into this industry," Munden said.
But now that parents have more options for child care in their community, he said the co-operative model should be considered for similar projects in other places.
"When people come together for a common purpose, you can make things happen versus individually trying to struggle through this."