When Amanda Lawson moved to Vashon with her husband and infant daughter last year, she was quickly confronted with the island’s limited day care possibilities.

“The first thing I did was start calling around for day care, and there was none,” she said.

Lawson was not working outside the home, but she wanted one day a week to tend to the countless tasks that are easier done alone than with an infant in tow. But whether she had wanted full-time care or just that sliver she sought each week, she said she found there were no day care center options open to her on Vashon.

In fact, of Vashon’s three licensed day cares, only one takes infants — and only one infant at a time. Now, Lawson intends to change the child care picture for her family and many others on the island by opening the Vashon Children’s Center, a licensed day care for children 6 weeks to 5 years old, on the first floor of the PlaySpace.

Lawson has not set an opening date yet, as it is dependent on when the state awards the facility a license, but she believes it will be within the next several weeks, the first of the year at the latest. In the meantime, she is inviting families with infants and young children to stop by Friday afternoon for the center’s fall festival and will open registration on Nov. 5.

Assisting Lawson at the day care is Sandy Gilliam, who Lawson hired early this month as the center’s program director. Gilliam has a bachelor’s degree in architecture and associate’s degree in early childhood development. She chose not to practice architecture, she said, instead focusing her professional energies on working with young children, including serving for more than 10 years as a child care worker and program supervisor for Childhaven, a therapeutic child care program for families in crisis.

In the past two years, Gilliam has focused her energies at home, helping her partner and two children, ages 8 and 10, adjust to island living after they moved to Vashon from Texas.

When she learned of the position at the Vashon Children’s Center, though, she responded.

“The idea of a child care center on Vashon is something I have fantasized about,” she said. “It was in my head as something I would like to do in the future.”

Lawson said she believes Gilliam’s experience will be valuable at the new day care center.

“I was so excited,” Lawson said, recalling when Gilliam accepted the position. “This will be a wonderful child care center. It will be everything I thought it would be.”

Now the two women are at work, creating a center from scratch and working to adhere to the many requirements necessary for licensure.

At the state’s Department of Early Learning, which oversees the licensure process, communications manager Mark Varadian noted that parents often do not rely on licensed day cares, particularly in rural areas, where many people know one another and where day cares may also be in short supply. His department’s position, though, is that there are advantages to licensed child care because of the requirements for both the facility and the providers.

“We want to have an environment that meets the health and safety needs of kids and where the providers themselves are aware of brain development for the kids to thrive, and for worst case scenarios, that they (staff members) understand CPR and first aid,” he said.

While Lawson and Gilliam are working toward licensure, they are also working on building curriculum. Gilliam is particularly inspired, she said, by the Reggio Emilia Approach, which places an emphasis on the interests of children in guiding curriculum choices. She added that children will be learning through play: art, music, make believe and outdoor time.

“We are excited about providing really high-quality child care for children,” Gilliam said. “Parents can drop their kids off and fully know they are benefitting.”

The center, in the space that once housed both the Vashon YMCA day care program and the Vashon Maury Cooperative Preschool, will likely be able to serve up to 22 kids, eight of them infants and toddlers, with four staff members on at any time.

They are hiring teachers now, Lawson said, adding that she does not intend to be among them, but instead will cook the meals and snacks, tend to administrative tasks and provide general support. She also plans to send her daughters, who are 2 years old and 6 months old, to the center.

Both full- and part-time child care options will be available, as well as drop-in care if space allows, but Lawson said they have not yet determined what the rates will be. While licensed day cares are technically eligible to enroll students for whom the state Departments of Social and Health Services (DSHS) pays, the center cannot afford to do so now, Gilliam said, but may in the future.

“If and when we have the opportunity to grow, that is in our plans,” she said.

At Love and Laughter, the licensed day care that provides  a small amount of  infant care, owner Jenny Mickelson said she gives priority to current families and frequently fields calls from women when they are pregnant, hoping to arrange care for months down the road. Her waiting list is often up to a dozen families long, she added.

“Definitely, there is a need for more infant care,” she said. “For all age groups, there is a need for day care.”

The other licensed day cares on the island, Kids are People Too, run by Danielle York, and El Gato con Botas, owned by Sarah Bunch, take children ages 3 to 9 and 1 to 5 respectively. Only York and Mickelson, however, take students whose care is paid for through DSHS, which reimburses for services at a low rate.

Mickelson noted she had hoped the new center would accept some of those kids.

“There is definitely a need for that as well, she said.”

She added that the new free preschool on the island, opening at Chautauqua Elementary School next week for children of families with very low incomes, will help address that need to some extent.

Kathleen Johnson, executive director of Vashon Youth & Family Services, which owns the PlaySpace, recently expressed her support of the new day care.

“We’re thrilled to be able to help provide the space for the Vashon Children’s Cen-

ter. … It is a great amenity that the island sorely needs,” she said.

She added that with some new preschools and recent changes at others on the island, as well as the creation of the Vashon Children’s Center, many will benefit.

“We think this a great fall for the island with the a lot of new opportunities coming on board to help build strong families,” she said.

The Vashon Children’s Fall Festival will include a barbecue, pumpkin carving contest, inflatable slide and a performance by Duo Finelli. There will also be a hayride to town for the evening’s trick-or-treating. The festival will run from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the PlaySpace on Gorsuch Road.

For more information about the center, see its Facebook page.