01/22/2026
We are choosing to close tomorrow in Solidarity with Minnesotans everywhere:
2 and 1/2 years ago, I opened Big Wonder with a dream of providing innovative, exceptional child care that meets the needs of teachers, families, and children. I take the stewardship of my community extremely seriously and I work myself to the bone to make sure our children, our families, and my teachers have their rights met.
One of the most fundamental and basic rights is the right to safety. In a world in which ICE agents are abducting staff from childcare centers, parents dropping off kids, and even children themselves, this right has become impossible for me to provide.
Child Care directors everywhere are forced to update our emergency preparedness plans and risk reduction plans, knowing that ICE is targeting us. A Spanish immersion school near my house has parents and community members stand watch every day. Every. Day. ICE visits them repeatedly and now taunts these observers, shouting at them and then filming the observers' responses. We no longer talk about how to provide innovative and exceptional childcare. We talk about whether it is SAFE for our children to be OUTSIDE.
And we’re doing it alone. We feel abandoned by our city and state leaders and attacked by our federal government. When two other childcare providers and I met last week to discuss whether we can expect the St. Paul Police to help us if ICE is acting illegally, both had to leave the meeting urgently and put their centers on lockdown because ICE was outside.
As a precursor to this madness, the federal administration froze federal childcare funding to Minnesota, citing unsubstantiated fraud. Unbelievably, our own legislator gleefully shared that she put this all in motion. She’s using our children as political pawns in a sick political game.
If the federal funding freeze isn’t lifted, thousands of Minnesota childcare centers will close, so we’re closing tomorrow to demonstrate what it looks like when childcare disappears. We’re closing for Child Care centers that are Spanish immersion and Somali, which are unfairly targeted ruthlessly by ICE. We’re closing child care centers that cannot balance their budgets without USDA food aid. We’re closing for the 23,000 children on CCAP who are at risk of losing their care and education. We’re closing for the child care centers that absolutely cannot close because their families will lose their jobs. And we’re closing to tell our immigrant neighbors who breathe life, spice, color, and joy into our community that we need them.
We’re closing tomorrow because if we don’t stand up now, we may soon be forced to close permanently.
Get involved: https://www.kidscountonus.com/
Kids Count On Us
