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Crawling to Destiny opens with goals
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
HaSheen Wilson, like so many other entrepreneurs, has a dream. His is to have an impact on today’s youths.
His way of doing so was to open his Crawling To Destiny Daycare and Learning Center at 11 Overhill Road.
“This is my noble attempt at social justice,” he said.
Wilson, a father of three, network administrator at Youngstown State University and adjunct faculty member there, has noticed just living in the suburbs and working in the city that there are issues today with children, particularly in their character and values.
His idea was to create an educational environment that is representative of the community and provides children a chance to interact with others from a different background and culture.
“It was a huge undertaking,” he said.
This task in creating his recently opened day care started two years ago.
His faith led him to not only believe, but to know he had to take a step into fixing the issues he saw and be the solution.
“It is a way of growing our community,” he said. “It is a way of taking back our community.”
Wilson had no idea where to start, but once again, his faith led him to the places he needed to make the day care a possibility.
He used the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to understand what he had to do to start a day care. He found a location along Market Street — a main corridor that connects the city to the suburbs — and he was able to outfit the day care with help from others.
He also found JoAnn Minor, a day-care professional with more than 30 years of experience, and hired her as his administrator.
“I do believe it’s a field that you don’t get into unless you have a love for it and a passion for kids,” Minor said. “We see the betterment of doing it; to help them [children] become who they need to be.”
The vision is to have the parents become a part of the day-care’s goals and help “tear down these barriers that we see in the communities,” Wilson said.
“It’s a safe place, and it’s about loving our children and speaking life to them on what the possibilities are and what they can be,” Wilson said.
Employees at the day care include students at Mahoning County Career and Technical Center. Precious Mitchell, an MCCTC student, is one of those youths who wanted to get into early childhood education because she loves babies, and because, to her, it is the most-important part of education. “That’s how you start out,” she said.
Crawling to Destiny is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.