On August 28, 2000, 3 children entered our doors for their first day of childcare at a brand new childcare. It had opened in the former Twin Willows Elementary school after Bethany Lutheran Church purchased the school a few months earlier. On day one, there was one teacher, one cook, and one accountant/director. 

By the end of the first week there were five children.

By the second week there were twelve.

From then on it continued to grow… and grow… and grow. 

You see, a group of people in the middle of Appleton at Bethany Lutheran Church had been for a while looking for a way to serve their community. And as Appleton kept growing to the north and communities like Grand Chute and Greenville were rapidly developing, Bethany saw an opportunity when the former Twin Willows school went up for sale. The church didn’t have a lot of money and they’d never done childcare before. It was a risk, but the opportunity was great. So they prayed about it, they talked about it, and the more they discussed, the more convinced they became that this was an opportunity to which God was leading them. That by providing one of the leading childcares in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley, Bethany could offer an invaluable service to the families of the Fox Valley and be a beacon of love in the community. 

So, in March of 2000, Bethany purchased Twin Willows. A few months later, Our Shepherd Childcare opened. 

Today, Our Shepherd has fulfilled and gone beyond that original dream of becoming a leader in quality childcare. It maintains a solid reputation as a safe childcare that parents have trusted for almost 20 years. That trust is backed up by a five-star rating from Wisconsin’s YoungStar childcare rating system that the staff and programs at Our Shepherd have earned with the work and time they put into quality. Additionally, Our Shepherd partners with Fox Valley Technical College here in Appleton and Martin Luther College in New Ulm, MN to stay at the forefront of early childhood research and program development. 

Our Shepherd has undergone several remodels and updates since 2000, including a significant addition in 2012 that doubled the capacity of Our Shepherd. This addition gave us the space we needed to build large state-of-the-art classrooms to provide the very best learning environments for our children. This addition also opened up a worship space and large multi-purpose room so that Our Shepherd could start hosting Family Worship Gatherings and other family enrichment events designed specifically for the families and children at Our Shepherd. 

God has blessed Our Shepherd and it’s families so much, and this is only the beginning. We thank every family that’s been part of our story up to this point, and we’re excited to be part of your family’s story as you join ours!