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Struthers day care renovates, updates facilities
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
STRUTHERS
Dee Fontes likes to say that a spaghetti dinner saved her business.
It was 1977 — or “somewhere around there.” The steel mills had just closed, and residents were leaving with them. As such, enrollment at Tiny Tots, the day care she and her twin sister had started a few years before, was declining noticeably.
“We thought we were going to have to close our doors,” Fontes recalled. “You just push forward and do what you have to do. We did everything we could to stay open.”
That “everything” included their hosting of a fundraising spaghetti dinner, where the offerings were entirely homemade and the day care’s teachers helped to serve them. Fontes and her sister, Diane Rouzzo, who died in February 2013, had the dinner at their 310 Argonne St. location, which today houses the day care’s school-age children and its after-school program.
But not for long.
By December, those children and that program will move to 586 Youngstown-Poland Road. Taking their place at the Argonne Street building will be infants, toddlers and preschoolers who now report to 275 Wilson St. — a former primary-school building that Tiny Tots began leasing from St. Nicholas Church in 1988.
Earlier this year, Fontes and her husband, Tony, decided not to renew the lease for the Wilson Street building. Instead, the business owners are funneling their efforts into the two buildings they do own: the Youngstown-Poland Road and Argonne Street locations. Both are being renovated to better serve the day care’s children, who range in age from 6 weeks to 12 years old.
“It’s pretty much a fresh start,” said Anthony Fontes, Dee and Tony’s son, who has helped out at Tiny Tots since he was a child.
Updating the buildings and their offerings, Dee Fontes said, will help Tiny Tots to remain competitive in a more competitive market.
After all, when Tiny Tots opened in a church basement in 1971, it was one of few day cares in the tri-county area. Plus, many of the rules and regulations that now govern day cares weren’t even in place at that time, Dee Fontes noted.
“Day cares were not a big thing,” she said. “Then, many women started to get into the workforce.”
In that first year, Tiny Tots enrolled just 25 children. In the second year, that number jumped to 80, and at its peak, before the mills shut down, Tiny Tots had about 180 children attending its programs.
Not a whole lot has changed in the 30-some years Tiny Tots has been in business, though Fontes and the other employees do try to keep up with industry changes. The children haven’t changed that much, she said, though families have. She’s noticed a lot more nontraditional families, and also that parents are more informed than they were years ago.
She’s also observed the first inklings of something she thought would never happen: the government’s becoming increasingly involved in the operations of day cares and preschools. Fontes said she’s not sure if their moving away from being privately owned is a good or a bad thing.
For one, she’s spent years perfecting the art of hiring caregivers. Tiny Tots uses a personality test during the employment process to determine whether a person has traits — patience, stability, cooperativeness — that would make him or her right for the job. It’s worked for the business; most employees have been there for at least five years, and many of them for far longer.
Having quality people is one of the reasons Tiny Tots has been so successful, Fontes explained. She hopes that trend continues.
“It’s a family business we started so many years ago,” she said. “I’d like it to succeed and keep going.”
“We’re happy to be staying in Struthers and serving the Valley,” Anthony added, noting that grand-reopening celebrations are in the works for November or December.