Creating an eco-healthy place for children

Day-care operator Deborah Thurber believes it’s important to provide an environmentally safe place for children to play and learn. “We’re caring for the next generation, and we’ve got to make the world viable for them in the future,” she says. Thurber owns All Children of the World in Spokane Valley and is president of the Eastern Washington Family Child Care Association, a trade organization that works to support and educate its 92 members, who mainly are in-home day-care operators. Last fall, the association offered a workshop on how to make a day-care facility more environmentally safe through a free program designed by the Portland-based Oregon Environmental Council, called Eco-Healthy Child Care. The workshop, which was taught by Sandra VanDoren, filled up quickly and boasted 70 attendees, including day-care providers and parents. There are many reasons a day care should go green, says VanDoren, who operates Noah’s Ark Preschool & Daycare here. “Mainly our environment, of course, and to reduce your environmental impact and footprint. If the average household has one recycle bin, we have seven.” At the workshop, attendees were given a checklist and encouraged to apply for a certificate through the Oregon organization. To be certified, day cares must follow a majority of the items on the checklist including using nontoxic pesticides, maintaining a nonsmoking environment, using biodegradable and nontoxic cleaners, not using play equipment with treated wood, selecting PVC-free toys, recycling waste, and installing hard flooring rather than carpet. Approved day cares receive a poster and are listed on the Oregon Environmental Council’s Web site. The council launched the Eco-Healthy Child Care program in 2005 to educate and support child-care providers in decreasing children’s exposure to harmful environmental toxics, says Hester Paul, who manages the program for the organization. The program now is available in more than 1,300 locations across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. “Research increasingly shows that the first years of a child’s life are critical to shaping their future health and development. As a child care provider, small changes you make can have a big impact on the children in your care,” writes Paul. “By reducing toxics, such as chemicals in certain cleaning products and weed killers, you help prevent illnesses like asthma, certain learning disabilities, and even some forms of cancer. For these reasons providing an environmentally-healthy, low-toxic setting is particularly important in the places children spend the majority of their time.” The council works with organizations based in various cities to promote its program and train workshop leaders. In Spokane, it works with the nonprofit Community-Minded Enterprises. Currently, 149 Spokane-area day-care facilities that serve nearly 3,000 children are certified as Eco-Healthy. They include Thurber’s All Children of the World, Auntie Mary’s Childcare, the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, Tamra’s Tots Koala Childcare, and others. Liberty Park Child Development Center, a Spokane-based day care that is a ministry of the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest, opted to participate in the program to help preserve the environment and be recognized for its efforts. “I believe that no matter how small we are, we can still make a difference. God gave us this beautiful land, and it is our responsibility to take care of it,” says Kristi Yeomans, the center’s executive director. “Our children will be the leaders of our country someday, and I believe that if we teach them the importance of taking care of the environment now, they will continue to make informed decisions in the future.” On Monday, April 26, Community-Minded Enterprises plans to offer an eco-healthy workshop, to be taught by VanDoren, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The cost is $10. For information or location, call (509) 444-3088. Both VanDoren and Thurber say they share eco-healthy principles with the children in their care. “We have to teach them,” Thurber says. “We sometimes go for walks around the neighborhood and pick up trash—I put gloves on their hands and give them little baggies—just trying to make the world a better place.” Those lessons, in turn, are spilling over into the children’s homes. “‘We don’t throw that away, Mom,’ the children will say,” VanDoren says. “Parents have said that their children have gotten into the swing of things because we do it.”