08/21/2026
Meet the Owners ❤️
Hi! We’re Mikayla and Kyle, the owners of Community Builders Childcare!
Outside of childcare, we love hiking, boating, traveling, and spending time with our family. But Community Builders has become such a huge part of who we are and what we feel called to do.
Our story actually started in a way we never expected.
A few years ago, Mikayla got a concussion and wasn’t able to continue working with the condition she was in. Kyle had always dreamed of owning a business, and Mikayla had always had a passion for early childhood education. So after a lot of prayer and conversations about what our next step should be, we decided to start a small in-home childcare program.
And when we say small, we mean we truly started from the ground up.
Right after our wedding and getting two dogs, with the help of our family, we completely remodeled a garage in less than two months to turn it into a space for kiddos. It was a lot of work, a lot of long days, and definitely a family effort, but that little space became the beginning of Community Builders.
After about a year, our waitlist grew bigger than what our home could handle. We prayed about what was next, took out a loan, and took a huge leap of faith to open our first center in Black Creek.
As that location continued to grow, we were eventually able to take another big leap and open our Appleton location!
And somehow, what started with a concussion, a garage remodel, a lot of prayer, and an in-home daycare has turned into something so much bigger than we ever imagined.
Through all of it, not only has Community Builders grown, but we have too. Our faith has become an important part of how we’ve learned to trust the process, especially when we don’t always know exactly what the next step looks like.
A lot of what we make goes right back into Community Builders. Into our classrooms. Our teachers. Our curriculum. Experiences for the kids. Improvements to our buildings. And figuring out how we can continue to make childcare better.
We also believe being owners means staying connected to what actually happens inside our classrooms. We want to know our kids, know our teachers, listen when something isn’t working, and never stop asking how we can do better.
Is owning childcare centers challenging? Absolutely. There are days that are exhausting. There are days we question ourselves. But then we walk into a classroom and get a giant hug or a fist bump from one of the kids and remember exactly why we started.
Our why is walking into a classroom and being greeted with fist bumps, hugs, and kids excited to tell us about their day.
Our why is watching a child learn something they couldn’t do before.
Our why is watching our teachers grow in confidence and realize how much of an impact they have.
Our why is being in a field where we have the opportunity to make a difference every single day.
Just under a year ago, our lives expanded outside of childcare when we became foster parents. Our mission has always been to make a difference in the lives of children, and fostering made that mission even bigger.
We believe children deserve more than the bare minimum.
Whether that means helping a child in our home understand what it feels like to be loved, supported, and safe, or helping a child in one of our classrooms feel secure enough to learn, grow, make mistakes, and become who they are meant to be.
Our journey to having a family of our own has also looked different than we imagined. We have struggled with infertility, and while pregnancy may not be in God’s plan for us at this moment, we believe there is still so much purpose in the season we are in.
To love kids who need it.
To advocate for them.
To support the people caring for them.
To challenge the stereotypes surrounding childcare and fostering.
To keep pushing for more than “good enough.”
And to fight for what we believe is in the best interest of children, even when doing so isn’t always easy.
We don’t want to build something that’s simply good enough to meet the minimum. We want to build places where children are known, teachers are supported, families feel heard, and we’re always willing to learn, grow, and do better.
Community Builders isn’t just a business to us.
It’s where so much of our time, energy, and money goes because we genuinely believe in what we are building. It’s our passion, our purpose, and one of the biggest ways we hope to leave this world a little better than we found it.
That is our why. ❤️
