In what has been described as a three-year passion project for John Stevens, the newest child care centre in Mudgee is close to completion, and the Mudgee Guardian went on a tour. John Stevens, the designer and builder of the centre explained that he and his wife fell in love with Mudgee some years ago and saw a desperate need for additional child care in town. "We came to Mudgee and we just fell in love with it, the whole town and we thought well, Mudgee was in need of another child care centre," John said. "We spoke to a lot of mothers and they said 'yeah, Mudgee does need another centre.'" "We thought 'in for a penny, in for a pound' we'll build the best centre that we can and that's what we set out to do three years ago and now the journey is almost complete." While the centre hasn't yet advertised, they've still been inundated with requests from parents in the region. "We've been overwhelmed, people are coming in and just loving the centre, the registrations are coming in beyond our expectations." One parent who asked to remain anonymous spoke to the Mudgee Guardian about what they found so impressive about the centre. "It's fantastic, the facilities are incredible, they've thought of everything. There's the music room, the computer room. there's a smart board, the play equipment is state-of-the-art," they said. "As a parent everything looks really safe which is what you want for your child. It's very open, there are a lot of windows which is what you want. I know that it's run by really great people." The centre is licensed for 124 children with an additional 30 in the after-school care / before school care. John says they envision that they will employ 'about 35 staff' and stressed that it's important to them that they give back to the town. "We always buy local we do everything local," he said. "We believe we will inject $2 million per annum into the local economy through our buying." The Mudgee Guardian asked if - with all the facilities available - the centre would be excessively priced. "We base our pricing on other centres, so we are extremely competitive and you'll find that all the centres here are approximately all the same in Mudgee, the average is about $115 a day and that seems to be across the board in Mudgee." John said. John said his experience being a father earlier in life is what led both he and his wife to realise their passion for creating child care centres. "I'm a father, i'm a very proud father of three beautiful children that I love dearly, they are 20, 21 and 22 and so through them growing up is what gave me the inspiration to create these child care centres," John said. He also hopes the centre can make an impact on the lives of its clients. "I want to make sure that every child that goes through here is able to swim, sport, technology and computing and also music and art," he said. "They are my passions and I want to instil that into the kids that leave this centre and hope that we have an impact on the lives of children."

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