Welcoming kids since 1972, Dunn’s Kiddie Kare administrator Suzanne ‘Suzie’ Dunn is celebrating 50 years of serving alongside her mother and founder, Marian Dunn.

Suzie Dunn shared how it all started.

“My mother … was a stay-at-home mom. There were eight children in our family. Every now and then neighbors or friends would say, ‘hey, you know, we need somebody to watch our kids.’ There wasn’t any other full time childcare center in Bowling Green at that time. And so, she was always helping the neighbors out,” she said.

“As we grew older, and we’re moving out of the house, my dad mentioned, ‘hey, you know, our kids are almost all gone [and] we still seem to have a lot of kids in our house.’ So, she saw the need, to possibly look into providing childcare in the Bowling Green area and opened up her first center,” Dunn said. “And it took off from there.”

While Marian wasn’t able to be interviewed due to being in Florida for the winter, Dunn gave all the credit to her mother.

“Her dedication to the center has always been here,” Suzie said.

The childcare center takes preschool to fifth grade-aged kids, also providing care before and after school. They currently have eight employees.

They had to close their services down for two months in 2020 due to coronavirus.

“It was such a scary thing, and so much unknown,” she said. “We’ve slowly been able to build our numbers back up again, (We) had a wonderful support system with our families that have always worked with us, I can’t say enough about the support and cooperation we get from our families in the Bowling Green and surrounding,” she said.

“When COVID hit, we were just two years shy of the 50-year mark. And I told myself and my staff, ‘I’ll be darned if COVID is going to (shut us down) before we have 50 years.’”

Kelsey Speck, a preschool teacher and daughter of Suzi Dunn, said it was important to be there for the families.

“We have lower enrollment, but we’re here because there still were families that had to get into go to work. We want them to have peace of mind, knowing who they’re leaving their children with,” Speck said.

Dunn’s has activities and is safe, she said.

“They can depend on us. And we’re going to do everything we can to always be here for them,” she said.

The daycare is offering jobs to education, human development and nursing majors. To apply, call 419-353-1737 or email them at [email protected].