JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dozens of children were left without their daycare after a fire damaged the building on the Eastside of Jacksonville.
Natasha Griffin, owner of Kinder Kollege Learning Center, said it could take months before the building reopens. Now, families have to find another option or wait.
The fire started inside the daycare’s kitchen. Minutes later, smoke billowed up to the ceiling and the building that had been a second home to 55 children was destroyed.
Griffin said it had been open for 11 years before the fire.
On Friday, News4JAX visited the site, and Griffin walked us through the damage.
“This is a disaster. There’s no light way of even looking at it when you have seen the building,” Griffin said.
The refrigerator, which Griffin bought in August 2023, stopped working and hours later the fire broke out, according to Griffin.
The tiny chairs, playsets and toys were all covered in smoke so everything must be replaced. Griffin said she has insurance for the building but it doesn’t cover anything inside.
The community is coming together and donating money to help through a GoFundMe but Griffin’s mind is on the parents that she helped take care of every day.
It speaks to a bigger issue.
According to childcaredesert.org, childcare is not always easy to find. As seen in the map below, Jacksonville is split between areas with adequate childcare resources in the blue and scarce childcare options in the orange.
Nicole Youngblood’s 2-year-old daughter is one of the 55 children who have to find another daycare until Kinder Kollege Learning Center is repaired.
“In a city this big you would think it would be very easy to find a daycare but it was really, really hard, especially with her age,” Youngblood said.
Youngblood and her husband have found temporary daycare but said they want to return to Kinder Kollege.
“My husband told me he drove by yesterday to see it and said it was pretty bad because I couldn’t even bring myself to drive by to see it because it’s something that just affected us so much thinking about the employees and their family and all of us as parents and the kids,” Youngblood said.
Griffin is devastated.
“I’ve just been like under a rock,” Griffin said. “This was more than a business this was personal we did so much in the community.”
The building will be closed until at least July.
Some of the parents said they will wait while Griffin tries to find another temporary location for the many parents who need daycare for their children.
.