Mary Innocenzi was in need of childcare. It was 1983 and she was a new mother to Jared, and someone needed to look after her infant son while she worked as an art teacher in Deptford.
A College of New Jersey graduate, Innocenzi now owns The Village Learning Center.
With fewer childcare options at the time, Innocenzi decided to fill that void by opening her own childcare center on Pennington Road near Slocum’s Bowling Center in Ewing, as well as running the Department of Transportation Childcare Center.
Eleven years later she purchased the 17-acre property on Yard Road in Pennington. In 1998 Innocenzi and director Sari Greenstein opened TVLC in a 5,000 square foot building, a location they more than doubled in 2001 with the addition of a 5,000 square building that mirrors the first one, and a 1,000 square foot connector where the gym is located. Today the center has 100 families and 35 staff members.
The Village Learning Center is open year-round, five days a week, 12 hours a day. They have ten classrooms for children ages six weeks through pre-kindergarten. They also offer summer camps for children up to age 8.
“We don’t close for the summer,” Greenstein said. “We try to be as flexible as possible with our schedules, we carry that along into the summer.” Some parents only need a couple of weeks of summer camp, others need the entire summer.
In the summer, twice a week students are bused to the Hopewell Valley Tennis and Swim Center for swimming. They also offer Mad Science (a science enrichment program), as well as Amazing Athletes sports clinics, and field trips.
Greenstein has been with TVLC since before the beginning, as have many of the teachers. She began working for Innocenzi when her center was located in Ewing. When planning their current location, Innocenzi and Greenstein brainstormed ideas.
“We worked together on what we wanted in a childcare center. It has been a lot of fun,” Greenstein said. “We wanted closed classrooms with each age group in their own classrooms. We wanted small child-sized furniture, including bathrooms, and viewing windows for parents to observe.” They currently have two classes for each age group. “Group sizes are small, which in turn provides more quality care.”
“We are not a franchise,” emphasizes Sari. “We don’t have corporate directors, but we do follow state regulations. We have an intimate setting. Mary is on staff five days a week and she teaches Music Together on Tuesdays.”
TVLC recently became a Phase I participant with Grow NJ Kids, a state-sponsored initiative to raise the quality of childcare and early learning throughout New Jersey.
The goal of the program is to provide parents with the information they need in order to assess and evaluate the quality of child care options through QRIS (Quality Rating and Improvement System). TVLC also recently received accreditation from the National Accreditation Commission for Early Care and Education Programs.
Village Learning Center, 15 Yard Road, Pennington, NJ 08534, (609) 737-7877, thevillagelearningcenter.com.
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