Fort Wainwright celebrated the opening of its new Child Development Center Tuesday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The $3.5 million facility is the Army’s newest and largest child-care center.
Active-duty military personnel and qualifying federal employees who work at Fort Wainwright now have access to a new spacious and colorful on-post child-care option for infants through kindergarten-age kids.
“It’s a really great facility” says fort spokesperson Eve Baker. “And it’s the only facility of that type among the Army child development centers.”
Baker says the 42,930-square-foot child-care center is the Army’s largest. And it’s designed to be used for both child care and early childhood education. That’s why 22 of the rooms for kids are referred to as classrooms.
“The center will have room for 284 children, from infants through age 5 – for preschool children and kindergartners,” she said.
Baker says the Child Development Center, or CDC, will make child care available for kids whose parents have been waiting for a space to open up.
“It will clear the waiting list for the other two facilities that we have,” she said, “and there will still be plenty of room for additional children to come in.”
The brightly lit CDC’s classrooms are furnished with age-appropriate chairs and desks and fixtures to accommodate the different age groups. It also has all the necessary grown-up amenities for staff and parents, like administrative offices, break room and a laundry.
“As well as a nursing room for staff or for parents who may want to visit their infants during the day,” Baker added.
And there’s also a 3,000-square-foot multipurpose room.
“Small groups can come in and use it, they can do sports, they can run around,” she said, “It can be an evacuation space in the event of an emergency.”
And throughout the CDC, there’s beautiful artwork that celebrates Alaska history and culture.
“Our new facility is named the Denegee Child Development Center, and that is a Tanana word for moose,” she said. “We worked closely with our Alaska Native tribal partners to come up with an appropriate name for the center.”
Baker says kids will be surrounded by artwork, much of which was created by members of the local arts community.
She says child-care providers interested in working in the new CDC can contact Fort Wainwright’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation office.
Tim Ellis is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
