Appletree Child Development Center has new owners effective April first.
Gay Gaston and Ed Smalley sold the business at 300 North Jefferson they started nearly 30 years ago to Eathan and Brittany Gowler of Mt. Vernon. Brittany Gowler has a degree in the child care field from SIU has worked in the field all of her life. Eathan is a teacher in Sandoval.
Gowler expects all 15 full and part-time employees to remain.
“We’re hoping to keep it pretty much the same,” Gowler said. “We’re blessed to have amazing staff and to follow in the footsteps of Gayla and Ed and all that they’ve done for Appletree. I think they’ve set us up really well. We’re going to get online a little bit more and step into the future with some of the things that we’re doing. We’re going to keep chugging away and be here for the families and the parents in the community.”
Gowler says they will look at making changes in some of the room sizes in hopes of getting an increase in the number of children they can care for. She reports that number is currently 48 with about 75 total clients from two weeks of age up.
Gowler is appreciative of Gaston and Smalley working with them to buy the facility instead of taking an offer from an out of town corporate buyer. The two opened the facility in June 1995.
Gowler says they hope this is just the first day care facility they own. She would like to have a facility in Mt. Vernon as well as one in Washington County where there is a shortage of day care facilities.
Appletree is the only facility of its type left in Salem.
