St. Michael’s Children’s Center

History of St. Michael’s Children’s Center

In 2000, Father G. Kevin Taylor came to me and asked if I thought we could open our own school on our church campus. We had a nursery school renting our Parish Hall and education building for several years. Father felt it was time for us to open our own school. I enthusiastically said yes! Father Kevin was able to obtain a loan from Church of Our Saviour, in San Gabriel. I lined up several church members to help with organization and paperwork and we got started on the year long process of opening the children’s center.

Mike Bergeron and I attended classes through the Department of Social Services to learn what we could and couldn’t do. We were licensed for 45 preschoolers and 12 babies.  

Randy and I built furniture and brought in a painter to repaint the whole inside. We also bought tables, chairs, cots, toys, outside play equipment and art supplies and so much more. We passed our inspection and was ready to start taking children in January of 2001.

I was able to hire a few teacher friends (from other schools) to teach. We started with just a few children and one baby. Within a year we had a waitlist of 60 families!

I started “Chapel Time” with the children to introduce them to church and to learn that God loves them. We sang lots of church songs and the children learned about God and Jesus.

I retired in 2011. We hired a couple directors that didn’t work out. Our current director, Lauren Cherrington, has been with us for several years and is very successful in keeping up with new rules, hiring great teachers and keeping the school looking new and clean. St. Michael’s has a great reputation in this community.

Father Joshua is now doing Chapel time with the children. The children love it and look forward to it each week.

St. Michael’s Children’s Center is a thriving ministry of this church and a huge benefit to the children and families.

— Melissa Albers
Founding Director

View more information about the Children’s Center.