Windy Hill Play is now three years young, and we are making the shift from operating almost entirely on belief to operating with the confidence of a community alongside us.
For the first three years, we were flying by the seat of our pull-ups. Now, we have three years of lived experience behind us. We have rhythms, systems, and instincts that we did not have available to us when we got started. We thought being parents had prepared us for the task at hand. We were both right and wrong. Being both parents and the owner-operators of a childcare organization has created a continuous cycle of learning and growth.
We are motivated by the belief that care should be relational and that families, caregivers, and children all deserve to be seen and valued within a care community.
Just like our young friends, we didn't wake up one morning with all the tools we needed to be competent at something new. We built competency through repetition and mistakes, and over time, the muscles that help us anticipate what comes next have grown and taken the driver’s seat. One major takeaway, and one that we often hear from our parents, is that this job is not for everyone. We are all grateful for those who are energized by this necessary and important work.
Windy Hill Play has been designed to be a care community that asks, “How can we support your family or business?” and offers a space where you feel like you are a part of something whether you come occasionally, every day, or only during the summer.
When we started Windy Hill Play, we went all in. It was humbling and vulnerable and we had nothing to tell us or show us that we were going to make it to the other side of the experiment. We opened the doors, stripped off the safety nets, and braced for the mess. There were days when we felt like we were crushing it—when we could feel the muscles snapping into place. Other days, we could feel the fatigue and the height of the hill in front of us.
We wanted to create a care organization that made you feel cared for. We have to constantly circle back to what truly makes us feel cared for, to feel seen and valued. It has to be in every part of the business; in how we care for children, parents, ourselves, our team, and the wider community.
We have had to remind ourselves that growth is not linear and that circling back repeatedly reinforces our foundation. Competency is what we are striving for, whether it is a child learning to use the toilet or an adult choosing to start something new. Competency does not come from a three-day, high-intensity training. That training is just one interval in the midst of a memory building marathon. Learning something new is vulnerable and intimate. It requires recognizing where we are and where we want to go. It is a constant celebration of who we are, who we have been, and where we are going.
Real competency is when you realize it would take intentional effort to unlearn what you have learned.
The need for what we are building is significant, and we see more evidence of that every day. Families are living and working outside of traditional schedules, and they need more than a transactional service to feel supported in raising their children. Yet our systems are built around a narrow definition of what families need, offering little structure or support to those coloring outside those limiting definitions. Windy Hill Play is demonstrating what is possible when care is adaptive, relationship-centered, and designed as community infrastructure rather than a transaction.
There were days when we questioned whether any of it was possible. Maybe it wasn't the right time. Maybe we didn't have what it took. Maybe it was too steep a climb. There were days filled with fun, play, and apple juice, and others filled with tears, mess, and a sense of defeat. Most days held some combination of both. It has been intense and draining, and yet we feel the overwhelming connection that comes with so many people being a part of our care community.
Windy Hill Play is a nonprofit care organization and it is also the story of two very different women building one care model, one capable of holding and celebrating a multitude of realities. Princess and I are stronger together because we choose to see each other, even when our differences strike us in uncomfortable ways. We have had to shed old ideas about ourselves, our roles, leadership, control, success, culture, religion, and even care itself. We have had to look at each other head-on and ask hard questions about how we show up for ourselves, for each other, and for Windy Hill Play.
Windy Hill Play was born through us, but it no longer belongs only to us. It has grown into a life force. It has its own relationships. Its own history. Its own people. Its own expectations. And its own future.
Maybe one of the reasons it has taken us three years to find the words for what we are building is because care will always be more art than science. True care extends from within us and ventures into the unknown space between ourselves and another person. It starts with acknowledging that yearning for care and searching for it can feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
Windy Hill Play offers a safe space for parents, care providers, children, students, and grandparents to step out with courage in search of care and feel supported and seen in that place of vulnerability. It is a place where you linger a little longer because you can feel how important you are while you are there.
Our challenge is growing while upholding the values that make Windy Hill Play feel personal and deeply human. We operate at the heart of a fundamental tension: care should be accessible to every family, and caregivers should be compensated in a way that reflects the importance of their work. We believe this tension is relieved when care is recognized as a shared responsibility rather than a private burden carried by individual families and caregivers. By placing connection at the center of our model, we can build sustainable revenue, compensate caregivers well, strengthen our care community, and expand our capacity. We are building connection across families, businesses, funders, and community organizations because every part of our community benefits from a strong care infrastructure.
And over the years, we have watched people walk through our doors searching for very different versions of care: some are searching for childcare, some are searching for meaningful work and a livable wages. Some are students looking for experience. Some need adaptability, while others are curious. We are building a care infrastructure strong enough to hold and value every person and organization that chooses to be a part of this community, and adaptive enough to grow alongside the people it supports.
