March 14, 2025 • 31 mins
Never underestimate the power of a mother's love. We sit down with Jenny Dumont Radler, the founder of A Place for Grace, Michigan's only fully inclusive childcare, preschool, afterschool program, and teen center for children with special needs. Jenny shares her deeply personal journey of raising her daughter, Emma, who was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. Through her struggles and triumphs, Jenny found her calling: creating a place where all children—regardless of ability—are welcomed, loved, and given the tools to thrive.
✅ How Jenny’s personal experience raising her daughter with special needs led to founding A Place for Grace.
✅ The challenges special needs children face in traditional daycare settings—and how inclusive childcare can make a difference.
✅ The incredible stories of resilience and transformation happening at A Place for Grace.
✅ The power of faith, forgiveness, and finding purpose through adversity.
✅ How you can support A Place for Grace and the children it serves.
Links:
🔗 Visit A Place for Grace: aplaceforgracechildcare.org
📍 Location: 4884 Gratiot Road, Suite 19, Saginaw, MI
📱 Follow A Place for Grace on Facebook
💖 Support the mission through the Saginaw Community Foundation
Subscribe to our Email Newsletter: https://totalmichigan.com/join/
Find us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/totalmichigan
Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@totalmichigan
Show Notes:
The Struggles Begin:
00:00 - Jenny’s Mission: Creating A Place for Grace for Emma & Others
02:15 - Emma’s Early Challenges: Surgeries, Strength & Survival
05:30 - Jenny Faces Every Mother’s Nightmare at Daycare
07:50 - The Moment That Changed Everything for Jenny & Emma
Against All Odds
09:45 - Jenny Searches for an Inclusive Childcare & Finds Nothing
12:30 - Emma Inspires Jenny to Build Michigan’s First Inclusive Childcare
15:10 - Building A Place for Grace: Passion vs. Real-World Obstacles
18:40 - Funding, Licensing & Community Skepticism—Can It Work?
22:15 - Betrayal: Jenny is Forced Out of Her Own Organization
25:50 - Starting Over: Jenny’s Relentless Fight for Inclusion
Hope, Triumph & A Brighter Future
27:30 - A Place for Grace Opens Its Doors: A Dream Becomes Reality
30:10 - A Foster Child’s Life is Transformed Through Jenny’s Mission
33:45 - Emma’s Growth & The Kids Who Found a Home at A Place for Grace
35:50 - The Future: Expanding A Place for Grace & How You Can Help
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jenny Dumont Radler (00:00):
So her first year of life with six surgeries
(00:03):
that she had to go through.
Yeah, that was tough.
I think I got to be a little bit morecomfortable with thanking God and I
believed in my heart that God choseme to have Emma because of what I'm
doing now for so many other kids.
And I, I believe that Iwas chosen to have her.
Cliff Duvernois (00:24):
Hello everyone.
Welcome back to Total Michigan, wherewe interview ordinary Michiganders
doing some pretty extraordinary things.
I'm your host, Cliff Duvernois.
If you've listened to the show for anylength of time, you will know that anybody
who works with children with specialneeds automatically gets a free pass to
the show because this is something thatis very near and dear to my heart, uh,
(00:46):
having a brother who was special needs,and I definitely understand what parents
and what families go through when itcomes to the extra effort you have to go
through to be able to take care of theselittle angels that God has given us.
Joining us today to talk about one suchorganization that's doing wonderful things
to help out parents, uh, with childrenwith special needs is Jenny Radler.
(01:09):
She is the executive director, owner,
Jenny Dumont Radler (01:12):
Founder,
Cliff Duvernois (01:12):
Founder of A Place for Grace located in Saginaw, Michigan.
Jenny, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Awesome.
So why don't you tell uswhat is A Place for Grace?
Jenny Dumont Radler (01:24):
A Place for Grace is Michigan's only totally inclusive
childcare, preschool afterschool care,and teen center for kids in Saginaw,
Bay City, Midland, Tri City areas.
We are fully inclusive, meaning we teachkids with special needs together with
those that are their non disabled peers.
(01:44):
And we provide them an educationalservice, emotional support, and
we prepare them for success whenthey go into the classrooms.
And it's important because you can't teachempathy to a child unless they are in it.
our kids, their socialemotional development.
because they're in the sameroom with a special needs
(02:06):
child and we don't label them.
They've, they learn empathy and caringand compassion in ways that no other,
but no other place could teach them.
Cliff Duvernois (02:16):
That's beautiful.
And there's a ton there for us to unpack.
Yes.
So, but I do want to ask you this questionbecause when we talk about children with
special needs, that's a very broad stroke.
Okay, because we're talkingabout maybe kids that have down
syndrome or maybe kids that are.
That have autism or you know, other,other kids, maybe just got some
(02:37):
kind of developmental learning.
So is your program, is it, I knowyou say inclusive, so I'm going
to assume the answer is yes, but.
Jenny Dumont Radler (02:44):
We take all types of disabilities.
So Down syndrome, ADHD, nonverbal,autistic, anybody that's in a wheelchair
or has any kind of physical disabilities.
My daughter, Emma, is intellectuallyand developmentally delayed.
So we take emotionallyimpaired hearing impaired.
(03:05):
We don't turn anyone away.
Cliff Duvernois (03:07):
Let's go back to the beginning.
Let's talk about where are you from?
Where did you grow up?
Jenny Dumont Radler (03:12):
I was born in Whittier, California.
Oh, okay.
I'm a California girl.
Yes.
And I grew up in Paso Robles, California.
Cliff Duvernois (03:20):
Okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler: Beautiful winery, by the way. (03:21):
undefined
Absolutely beautiful winery.
We get wine from them all the time.
But I ended up going to Colorado for 10years before coming to Michigan in 2000.
Cliff Duvernois (03:31):
So what brought you to Michigan?
Jenny Dumont Radler (03:32):
Emma's dad and I got married, and, uh, so
that's what brought me here.
Cliff Duvernois (03:37):
Okay.
Now, at some point in time, of course, APlace for Grace didn't exist back then.
You find out that youare pregnant with Emma.
Yeah.
Talk to us a little bit about that story.
Jenny Dumont Radler (03:51):
So being pregnant is I have a, also a 31 year old son.
So I had been pregnant before.
So I knew what to experience.
And it was all very exciting.
It was.
combining our two families together.
Until I was 20 weeks pregnant andI had my ultrasound for us to find
out if it was a girl or a boy andmake sure everybody is healthy.
And the
Cliff Duvernois (04:10):
routine,
Jenny Dumont Radler (04:11):
part of the routine stuff.
The x ray tech was concerned becauseher nose looked abnormal, abnormally
large and say they sent us toa second tier obstetrician, Dr.
Wechter in Saginaw.
And it was then he foundthat she had a cleft.
Cleft lip.
They didn't know how badit was, but I had a choice.
(04:32):
I could either because of the cleftlip and because of the two vessel cord,
the possibility of her having trisomy13 were high and I could find out if
she had it with an amniocentesis ornot do anything and just wait and see
because if she did have trisomy 13,then she would not live long past birth.
Cliff Duvernois (04:52):
Oh, okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (04:54):
I remember that day my mother in law was with
me at the time my husband must
Cliff Duvernois (04:58):
have been crushing.
Jenny Dumont Radler (04:59):
It was very hard.
I went straight to my church becauseI just didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to do.
I want to find out if she has trisomy 13.
I wasn't going to abort her.
Even if she did, but then you have to gothrough the rest of your pregnancy knowing
that this child isn't going to live.
Or do I not do anything and justhope and pray that she's okay?
Cliff Duvernois (05:21):
Right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (05:22):
It was the most, it was a, you would think that it would
be an easy decision, but it was not.
So I sought counsel frommy, my priest at the time.
He talked to me about it.
Of course, I'm crying.
I can't stop crying.
And he just finally looked at meand he says, knowledge is power.
And I said, okay.
So I decided to do the amniocentesisand that's when they found out her, it
(05:44):
was a bilateral cleft lip and palate,a midline bilateral cleft lip and
palate, which mean it was her sinuseswere open all the way up to her brain.
Cliff Duvernois (05:52):
Oh, so literally it's like, is, are
you saying there's like no bone?
Jenny Dumont Radler (05:56):
No, she had the, they, she had no, no
palate to the roof of her mouth.
We had to use special bottles forher to feed because she couldn't,
So her first year of life withsix surgeries that she had to go
through and yeah, that was tough.
It's not, not easy handing your child overto a surgeon when they're two months old.
Cliff Duvernois (06:15):
No, it's not.
And did you, did you at everypoint going through this, did you
ever stop and like maybe ask God?
All the time.
When this was happening, orwhat you, I, I blamed myself.
Okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (06:27):
And my journey and my faith was a big part of getting past
that because I was baptized in 2001.
I had never been baptized before, andso I converted to Catholicism, and I
got to be baptized when I was in my 30s.
And so I went through the entire spanof what a young student would go through
(06:51):
when they're getting baptized and do theirconfirmation and their first communion
and, repentance and all that stuff.
I was an adult, so I reallycould grasp that concept.
I'll never forget after it was probablyfive or six years after Emma was
born and I thought, Okay, what didI do when I was pregnant with her?
Did I use some cleaner thatI wasn't supposed to do?
(07:13):
Did I drink something beforeI found out I was pregnant?
Did I get exposed to something?
Did I injure myself?
And you just cannot getrid of that guilt feeling.
Cliff Duvernois (07:23):
Yeah, it's hard to let it go.
Yes.
Jenny Dumont Radler (07:25):
But then, it just, it was one of those things when I finally
decided that I was going to start APlace for Grace, I forgave myself.
Cliff Duvernois (07:35):
Oh, that's you.
Jenny Dumont Radler (07:37):
I forgave myself so that I could carry on without that
heavy burden for Emma and for otherkids, because it's a lot to carry.
It's to think that you harmed thischild and that she's never going
to have a normal life like youwould want your daughter to have.
Cliff Duvernois (07:55):
So let's, I'd like to take a step back here
because you mentioned before aboutTurning Emma over to the surgeon
when she was just two months old,
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:03):
two months old, they had to put in a Latham appliance
to try to widen her mouth a little bitso that teeth could start growing in.
Cliff Duvernois (08:11):
Oh, my goodness.
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:13):
Yeah.
Cliff Duvernois (08:13):
And then I could just imagine from here.
It was probably just surgery after surgery
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:18):
every two to three
months.
She first the latham applianceand then they did the first lip
closure because she had so, somuch of her of her lip was missing.
They had to do it in two surgeries.
So they did the first lip closure,which was the interior one.
And I know that sounds weird, but itwasn't the exterior part of the lip.
(08:38):
It was just the interior tissues.
And she had to wear a bar thatwas across her face that you know,
would push her cheeks together.
And she had to wear splints on her armsso she couldn't pull at it for two weeks.
Cliff Duvernois (08:51):
Oh my goodness.
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:52):
But you know what?
She was the happiest little girl.
You would, you would never know.
I never stopped her.
I mean, but it was stressful for sure.
And that was a tough surgery.
We had to go to U of M.
They have a cranial facialmaxillofacial surgery in Ann
Cliff Duvernois (09:05):
Arbor.
Yeah.
Jenny Dumont Radler (09:06):
U
of M in Ann Arbor.
And then three months later theydid the exterior of her lip.
And that was really tough obviously.
And then they had to do Take out someteeth, because her tissue, teeth were
coming in, inverted in her mouth.
Cliff Duvernois (09:22):
Right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (09:23):
And then they did the palate, which that was four hour surgery.
Wow.
And she was just over a year old by then.
And so they did the palate shecouldn't hear for her first
three months of life either.
So she had to have six sets of tubes.
So we were involved with early on.
from literally day one.
And they came to the house and wetaught her sign language and because she
(09:44):
couldn't talk until, for a long time.
So she's, I mean, this, that girl,you think anybody is resilient.
That girl is so resilientand she's so happy.
Cliff Duvernois (09:53):
I feel so pathetic right now.
Jenny Dumont Radler (09:55):
I do too.
I've, I'm a better person because of herand knowing that she's, she's happy and
thankfully she doesn't know any differentbecause that would break my heart.
Cliff Duvernois (10:09):
With regards to the surgeries and I'm, I'm, I'm coming from
a complete place of ignorance for thiswhen it comes to the surgeries, because
you're talking before about, you know,having to, where the special brace and,
and put in, put the palate and stuff.
And, but I'm also thinking too about thefact that how much growing is going on.
So is this something where it's justevery few years, she's going to have
(10:29):
to have another surgery or is it, isit something that, that grows with her?
How does that, How does that work?
Jenny Dumont Radler (10:36):
She's had a bone graft done.
Because she didn't havea bridge in her mouth,
Cliff Duvernois (10:41):
you
Jenny Dumont Radler (10:43):
know, would close.
So she had a bone graft.
They took bone from her hip.
When she was I want to say shewas like nine years old, ten years
old, and graft a bone up there.
And then two years ago, she had tohave expanders put in to open up
her mouth a little bit more so thatsome of her teeth could come down.
Because her mouth doesn't close.
She has a severe underbite.
(11:04):
So her mouth doesn't close all the way.
So her face does grow and they monitor it.
We go to a cleft palateclinic at U of M every year.
We just went actually in February andthey monitor how far her mouth grows.
So like her chin can grow out,but this part of her face won't.
(11:25):
And so she
Cliff Duvernois (11:26):
that's right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (11:27):
Yeah.
So it doesn't grow.
If it doesn't grow right, they want, theysometimes would want to do surgery on it.
Which would entail breaking her jaw,expanding it out, and I said, no.
This girl's been through enough.
She's beautiful the way she is.
I don't want to change her face.
The only thing they're left to do is,later this year, they're going to do
(11:48):
a little nasal work on her, becauseher nose is really, really flat.
She has a hard time with breathingand mucus and stuff, so they're going
to lift her nose up a little bit.
Cliff Duvernois (11:56):
Okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (11:56):
but when Dr.
Henning did her first lip surgeryhere, he tucked in, he's, there's
live tissue that's tucked into hernose that they'll be able to use, so.
Cliff Duvernois (12:05):
Now, let me, because you said this before, and it kind of
caught my attention when you said,she's beautiful just the way she is.
Jenny Dumont Radler (12:10):
She is.
Cliff Duvernois (12:11):
Was there ever a point in time during this process that you
actually said to yourself, you know what?
God, thank you for thisbeautiful gift you've given me.
Yes.
Jenny Dumont Radler: several times, actually. (12:21):
undefined
Because after she was.
Her pallet was closed and she got tostart eating food and then she started
going to school and her first IEP.
After that, I think I got to be a littlebit more comfortable with thanking God
and I believed in my heart that Godchose me to have Emma because of what
(12:47):
I'm doing now for so many other kids.
And I, I believe that Iwas chosen to have her.
Cliff Duvernois (12:54):
And with that we're going to take a break to thank our sponsors and
we're going to talk a lot more about whatyou're doing for so many beautiful kids
that are located in the area for audience.
We'll be back after this quick break.
We are talking with Jenny froma A Place for Grace located
in Saginaw from Michigan.
And, uh, we will see you after the break.
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(13:15):
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(13:36):
Hello, everyone.
Welcome back to total Michigan, wherewe interview ordinary Michiganders
doing some pretty extraordinary things.
I'm your host.
Cliff DuVernois.
Today, we are talking to Miss Jenny,A Place for Grace, a beautiful
organization that's doing wonderfulthings for kids with special needs.
(13:57):
And Jenny, before the break, we weretalking about, we were actually walking
through, uh, your journey, uh, withEmma and a lot of the, uh, trials that
you had to go through the numeroussurgeries that you had to, uh, try to
give her some semblance of, uh, A normallife and what I want to do now is I
(14:17):
want to just take a couple of minuteshere and explore how A Place for Grace
came about because you've got Emma.
She's clearly special needs.
So how did that processstart on your journey?
Jenny Dumont Radler (14:33):
I have always been a promoter and supporter of a daycare
and sending a child to daycare becausethe socialization is so important.
But because of all of Emma's surgerieswhen she was younger, we waited until
she was 18 months old to go to a daycare.
Okay.
So we started her at St.
Stephens, and they actuallywere wonderful with her.
(14:54):
She was young, so she was still growing.
A lot of her disabilities did notalways show up until she started school.
When she started school at fourin the ECDD program she You could,
that's when all of her developmentaldisabilities and cognitive impairments
and stuff started coming to light,realizing that she was not going to
(15:15):
be learning on the same path as everyother child, but I was always working.
I was working as a paralegal for 13 years.
Cliff Duvernois (15:22):
Somebody's got to pay the bills.
Jenny Dumont Radler (15:23):
My husband at the time was a teacher.
She went to after school care,and over the summer, she would
go to a daycare over the summer.
The daycare that she was at in, wasin Saginaw, and I got called, I think,
four times in a week to come pick herup because she was having a meltdown.
And, I show up, and this is a veryvivid memory of mine, I show up and the
(15:47):
caregiver is holding my daughter, Emma.
And she's nine or eight holding her withher legs wrapped around her like in a
bear hug and Emma screaming her head off.
Cliff Duvernois (15:58):
Oh my goodness.
Jenny Dumont Radler (15:59):
And they said they were doing this because Emma
was going to hurt herself or she waskicking and hitting other people.
I was like, what?
That's not my daughter.
I mean, she's tiny.
I immediately took her and gother in the car and she was fine.
I said, Emma, what happened?
And she says, well, theydidn't want to play with me.
(16:19):
And she couldn't understandthat because she wanted to play.
And she was really into playing catsand dogs at that time in her life.
She loved to crawl aroundand play cats and dogs.
Her name was Black Ears when shewas a dog, that was her name.
but when you're a certain age, whenyou're five years old in the daycare
system, you are considered school age.
(16:40):
And school age kids have a ratioof one caregiver for 18 kids.
Mind you, you're having five yearolds all the way up to a 12 year old
in the same room with one caregiver.
Oh boy.
So here you have this little five,six year old girl who's trying
to crawl around and play dogs.
Kids are making fun of her.
(17:01):
Nobody will play with her because,she's not playing like everybody else.
And so she just would have theseemotional meltdowns because
nobody would do anything with her.
She needed to be in a classroom withthe younger kids because that was her.
That's where she was at.
That's where she was at.
So I remember leaving that day afterEmma was telling me that nobody would
(17:21):
play with her, leaving that day thinking,there's got to be a better place.
There's got to be a daycarefor kids with special needs.
I mean, there are over 4, 000 kids withspecial needs in Saginaw County alone.
I mean, you could look it up on theIDEA website if it's still Active?
I don't know.
(17:41):
But there's at least 4, 000 kidswith an IEP or some sort of special
needs in Saginaw County at that time.
That was back in 2013.
Emma was eight and Istarted calling around.
I'm like, where's there adaycare for special needs kids?
And I didn't, I couldn't find one.
So I had our first boardmeeting in my house.
(18:04):
my friend Linda and a coupleof other people that I knew,
I said, Hey, I have this idea.
I want to start a daycarefor kids with special needs.
my daughter's name is Emma Grace, and Isaid, I want to call it A Place for Grace.
so we met in my living room, we endedup, I, I found a friend of mine who was
a business consultant, and he knew how tostart companies, because I didn't know.
Cliff Duvernois (18:25):
You're paralegal.
Jenny Dumont Radler (18:26):
I was a paralegal, I owned my own referral marketing
company, I did some things on myI mean, I was working on my own.
Doing coaching and training.
So I hired this guy.
He started, we did a SWOT analysis.
So we would bring people in fromthe community and we said, okay,
this is what we're thinking of.
What do you guys think?
And then, they get throughall of their ideas.
(18:47):
What are kind of, someobstacles and things.
So we finally formulated a plan,but then it came to a point like,
okay I'm ready to move forward.
We got to do something.
It's been six months.
It doesn't take this long.
To me, because I'm right.
It doesn't take that long.
And he's like, Oh, no, you're good.
You got a year or more.
I'm like, No, that's notgoing to work for me.
(19:08):
So I found somebody hewent to the wayside.
I found somebody else.
And I was really excited about it.
And I thought she was going to be theone because she talked all the talks.
But she then she infiltrated my board.
She had all of my friends, close friendswho knew Emma were board members.
She had them all sign.
(19:28):
Non disclosure agreements and kicked meoff the board and then I found out I got
wind from one of them told me that shewas dismantling the board because things
weren't going the way she wanted it.
Cliff Duvernois (19:41):
So I was like, I'm completely confused by this by the way.
Why did it was there any reason
Jenny Dumont Radler (19:47):
why?
The only thing I can think of and whatsomebody told me later was that, that
this person that we hired to, to bethe board president and because I was
still working, I wasn't planning onworking at the daycare, I wanted to
start it and then let the board run it.
I was told that the only reasonI could think of was that she was
(20:08):
trying to take it for herself.
I I got wind of it in May of 2014, thatshe was going to dissolve the board.
So I went and started another LLC andI found a location inside the First
United Methodist Church over on Gratiot.
And they were going to letme use four rooms for free.
(20:30):
I, my husband told me at the time,you have to decide if you're going
to continue with your own referralmarketing coaching or if you're
going to go and work at the daycare.
Cliff Duvernois (20:39):
Yeah.
Jenny Dumont Radler (20:40):
And I remember sitting down with
Barbara Littles in Saginaw andI said, I don't know what to do.
I really love what I'm doingand coaching and training.
How can I just turnaway from this daycare?
And she just looked at me and she says,well, what do you want your legacy to be?
Oh, I said, okay, I'm done.
(21:02):
I'm done.
So June 1st, I gave up myfranchise that I had and I went
full board into A Place for Grace.
I applied for our license and that wasJune 1st, applied for our license, got it,
got everything ready to go at the daycare.
Cause when you apply for a license toget accepted, you literally like have to
(21:24):
be like, you're opening up the next day.
Cliff Duvernois (21:26):
Yeah,
Jenny Dumont Radler: everything has to be in place. (21:26):
undefined
I took it upon myself to to make myselfmeet with my licensing consultant.
I got my license approved end of July.
Cliff Duvernois (21:36):
And in addition to all this too, I can imagine that there's
probably state certifications becauseyou're going to have kids in there.
It's just
Jenny Dumont Radler (21:44):
a state licensing through LARA.
Um, you just have all of theserequirements that you have to, making
sure that the, the safety is there, allof the fire insurance, and we had to
have, the entire church had to be approvedbecause the kids could run in the hallway.
So, and we had to put the bulletin boardsin this church, and this church is big.
Cliff Duvernois (22:04):
Right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:04):
Bulletin boards in this church were not fire protected.
So we had to go and paint everysingle bulletin board with a
fire protectant to get approved.
Cliff Duvernois (22:14):
Sweet
Moses.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:16):
But it was worth it.
We were there for, six years, seven years.
And
Cliff Duvernois (22:20):
then you outgrew that space.
Jenny Dumont Radler: Well, they evicted us. (22:22):
undefined
Cliff Duvernois (22:24):
Okay, so you had to go find another place, someplace
where they won't evict you.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:29):
Right.
I, uh, found a space inside of the GratiotPlace Plaza over off Gratiot and Center.
And it was the formerCrossFit whip gym down there.
And so I Leased that space and we had tolay all the flooring we did because it
was just concrete, just big concrete room.
(22:49):
And so now that's wherewe're at right now.
But in November of 2022, I bought abuilding across the street from us.
I'm sorry.
Cliff Duvernois (22:58):
You're okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:59):
I bought the building across the street from us,
the old Ferguson plumbing building,renovated the front part of that.
So we are waiting to move into there.
it's an 18, 000 square foot building.
So our plan is to really expandour services and offerings.
When we, as, as we can, causeit's obviously very costly to do
(23:19):
any kind of construction, but wedo have 3, 500 square feet that's
already remodeled waiting to go.
And move all of our infants and toddlersand preschoolers over there and expand.
Cliff Duvernois (23:28):
That is just beautiful.
And I want to circle back on somethingthat, you know, that you mentioned before.
And that is, it's not just daycare.
That's babysitting.
You have people coming in there tohelp to teach the kids, you know, like
how to, I mean, this, this to me isabove and beyond just a simple daycare.
Where did this idea, come from tostart offering all of these additional
(23:52):
things like, Hey, if we've gotyour kids, let's work with them.
Jenny Dumont Radler (23:54):
Well, because all of these kids that we care for,
I think of as my own and what, wouldI want my daughter to be exposed to
Cliff Duvernois (24:01):
all beautiful?
Jenny Dumont Radler: What would I want Emma? (24:02):
undefined
How do I want her to be treated?
And that's how I want allthese kids to be treated.
So What we do is I bring in people fromthe community, like I would bring in
a BCBA and they trained us how to do,board certified behavioral, analyst.
So they're the ones that run operateand run ABA centers, applied behavioral
(24:25):
analysis centers for kids withautism or any kind of behavior that
they need a behavior modification.
So you mentioned itbefore, like if a child is.
Maybe seven years old and they haven't yetlearned how to talk or feed themselves.
ABA takes those small goals and comesup with a plan to achieve that one goal.
(24:47):
And, it could be anything.
It could, it could be, just taking asquare peg and putting it in the square
hole and if they can do that five times,then they're going to master that.
And then you can scaffoldit from there and you can
continue to build their success.
To me, that was what was important.
And as a parent of a special needsmom, I know the challenges, is.
(25:09):
That you're going through with work,the medical your own relationships.
And that's so stressful and how to keep.
Such a positive attitudefor these children.
I wanted to create a space that theywere cared for the way they should be.
Instead of, you come to myspace and you adapt to what I'm
doing, it's we adapt to you.
(25:31):
And so it, we use the community, hada lot of people come in and train us.
I went to, back to school again.
And I got my CDA, which isChild Development Accreditation.
All of my staff is highly educatedand we have good retention and we're a
team, we're there for the same goal foreveryone to make these children feel
(25:55):
loved and accepted and cared for the waythat I would want my daughter cared for.
And so the people that I have workingfor me have the biggest hearts.
It's a lot of work because you, if youhave a room full of 13 preschoolers,
which is two and a half to five.
And four of them have some sort of specialneeds, non verbal ADHD, any physical
(26:18):
disabilities, any, anything, it's a lot.
Cliff Duvernois (26:21):
Right.
Let me ask you this question here, becauseit sounds like what you're doing over
there is just absolutely incredible.
I think so.
And the question that I have for youthere some, Is there a story, maybe of
somebody that you were able to reach,maybe some parents were just completely
overjoyed because you could offerthem an option that nobody else could?
(26:44):
Is there, is there any storieslike that to stand out to you?
Jenny Dumont Radler: There's lots of stories. (26:47):
undefined
I opened, my first daywas in September of 2014.
It was the day after school started.
We take kids that are older than 13.
So, licensing in Michiganstops at the age of 12.
Once you turn 13, there's nolicense requirements for watching
kids, because they expect, I think,a 13 year old would stay home.
(27:08):
Obviously, my daughter wasnine and I wasn't going to
kick her out when she was 13.
So we took kids that are older than 13.
We had a lady, at the time shestarted with me, she was 26.
She was, wheelchair, not bound,but she used a wheelchair.
She could walk, but she was cognitivelyprobably like a 11 month old.
(27:30):
And we had to do everything for her,but we found out some of the things that
she liked and she would dance and shewould get up and walk around and dance.
We take her on field trips, we, andshe would sit there and, she couldn't
talk, but you could tell she wasinvolved in, in, in what we were doing.
And so.
Right.
We would just have our, these olderpeople with our school agers, and the
(27:54):
school agers would help with them.
Ashley is, now 30, what is she,35 now, and we've taken care
of her for the last 11 years.
that's just a special place inmy heart for her, but we have, a
little boy that was six years old.
He has Down syndrome.
He ended up going to homecomingand then prom with my daughter.
So, and, uh, oh, we just, there's just.
(28:17):
There's so many stories, but the one mostrecently was, is a story of a foster kid.
Because we took a lot of fosterkids, because a lot of foster kids
are being taken away from parents,typically because they have some sort
of disability and they can't handle it.
So, this couple was adopting thisfoster child from another country.
Oh, okay.
(28:38):
And he was autistic.
And so he started with us when hewas three and totally nonverbal,
severely autistic, would not beable to sit down for a minute, would
throw things, dumped everything,hitting, screaming, I mean, just.
Just, you name it, it wasjust, it was really intense.
(28:59):
We had to, I had to bring ina one on one with him, and I
will do that in a heartbeat.
Most places won't, but if I needto, I will bring a one on one
to work with a child so thatthey can show some successes.
Well, slowly but surely, westarted learning about him.
He likes to play games, he likes tolisten to music, and we would just
work with him and work with him andwork with him, and now he comes in
(29:22):
and he, he went to Disney World.
Last week with his parents and did he usedto be a runner not a runner anymore now
He does he did start school also and hecan talk And have full sentences with you.
And It's an amazing story AndI mean I have so many of them.
There's just so many.
(29:43):
Well, how much time we got?
I know I could go throughall of these kids.
I mean, The kids that we've had and theexperiences I've, I've had with children.
Some of them got physical.
But I'm always there andI'm their safe place.
And we work through it, you know, You justwork through it as love first compassion.
(30:05):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And just love that child first,first and foremost, just love them.
Cliff Duvernois (30:10):
Jenny, if somebody is listening to this and they want to
reach out, they wanna maybe find youonline, stop by A Place for Grace.
How can, how can they do that?
Jenny Dumont Radler (30:20):
Well, we're located at 4 8 8 4 Gratiot Road, suite 19.
just on the corner of Gratiot and Center.
We have a website, A Placefor Grace childcare.org.
and of course we have a Facebookpage, a social media page that
probably needs to be updated.
But, you know, and we are, we dowork with the Saginaw Community
(30:41):
Foundation to accept donations.
Because that does help with ouroperations, because we do, we
have a lower ratio of caregiversto kids than any other daycare.
and it's based on age.
So, like I told you, the school agersfrom 5 to 12 is a 1 to 18 ratio.
Five year old, or excuse me, fouryear olds is a one to ten ratio.
(31:02):
two and a half year olds isone to eight ratio, and infants
and toddlers are one to four.
Anybody younger than two and a half.
We typically have a one to four ratioin both our preschool and school age
room because we're interacting witheach of these kids, on the, on their
level, on the ground and working withthem, teaching them how to be friends to
each other and accepting of each other.
(31:24):
Any help is always greatly appreciated.
Certainly.
Cliff Duvernois (31:27):
Jenny, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today.
Really do appreciate it.
Jenny Dumont Radler (31:30):
Thank you very much.
Cliff Duvernois (31:32):
And for audience, you can always roll on over to total michigan.
com and click on Jenny's interview,uh, and get the links and the address
that she was just talking about there.
We'll see you next time when wetalk to another Michigander doing
some pretty extraordinary things.
We'll see you then.
So her first year of life with six surgeries
(00:03):
that she had to go through.
Yeah, that was tough.
I think I got to be a little bit morecomfortable with thanking God and I
believed in my heart that God choseme to have Emma because of what I'm
doing now for so many other kids.
And I, I believe that Iwas chosen to have her.
Cliff Duvernois (00:24):
Hello everyone.
Welcome back to Total Michigan, wherewe interview ordinary Michiganders
doing some pretty extraordinary things.
I'm your host, Cliff Duvernois.
If you've listened to the show for anylength of time, you will know that anybody
who works with children with specialneeds automatically gets a free pass to
the show because this is something thatis very near and dear to my heart, uh,
(00:46):
having a brother who was special needs,and I definitely understand what parents
and what families go through when itcomes to the extra effort you have to go
through to be able to take care of theselittle angels that God has given us.
Joining us today to talk about one suchorganization that's doing wonderful things
to help out parents, uh, with childrenwith special needs is Jenny Radler.
(01:09):
She is the executive director, owner,
Jenny Dumont Radler (01:12):
Founder,
Cliff Duvernois (01:12):
Founder of A Place for Grace located in Saginaw, Michigan.
Jenny, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Awesome.
So why don't you tell uswhat is A Place for Grace?
Jenny Dumont Radler (01:24):
A Place for Grace is Michigan's only totally inclusive
childcare, preschool afterschool care,and teen center for kids in Saginaw,
Bay City, Midland, Tri City areas.
We are fully inclusive, meaning we teachkids with special needs together with
those that are their non disabled peers.
(01:44):
And we provide them an educationalservice, emotional support, and
we prepare them for success whenthey go into the classrooms.
And it's important because you can't teachempathy to a child unless they are in it.
our kids, their socialemotional development.
because they're in the sameroom with a special needs
(02:06):
child and we don't label them.
They've, they learn empathy and caringand compassion in ways that no other,
but no other place could teach them.
Cliff Duvernois (02:16):
That's beautiful.
And there's a ton there for us to unpack.
Yes.
So, but I do want to ask you this questionbecause when we talk about children with
special needs, that's a very broad stroke.
Okay, because we're talkingabout maybe kids that have down
syndrome or maybe kids that are.
That have autism or you know, other,other kids, maybe just got some
(02:37):
kind of developmental learning.
So is your program, is it, I knowyou say inclusive, so I'm going
to assume the answer is yes, but.
Jenny Dumont Radler (02:44):
We take all types of disabilities.
So Down syndrome, ADHD, nonverbal,autistic, anybody that's in a wheelchair
or has any kind of physical disabilities.
My daughter, Emma, is intellectuallyand developmentally delayed.
So we take emotionallyimpaired hearing impaired.
(03:05):
We don't turn anyone away.
Cliff Duvernois (03:07):
Let's go back to the beginning.
Let's talk about where are you from?
Where did you grow up?
Jenny Dumont Radler (03:12):
I was born in Whittier, California.
Oh, okay.
I'm a California girl.
Yes.
And I grew up in Paso Robles, California.
Cliff Duvernois (03:20):
Okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler: Beautiful winery, by the way. (03:21):
undefined
Absolutely beautiful winery.
We get wine from them all the time.
But I ended up going to Colorado for 10years before coming to Michigan in 2000.
Cliff Duvernois (03:31):
So what brought you to Michigan?
Jenny Dumont Radler (03:32):
Emma's dad and I got married, and, uh, so
that's what brought me here.
Cliff Duvernois (03:37):
Okay.
Now, at some point in time, of course, APlace for Grace didn't exist back then.
You find out that youare pregnant with Emma.
Yeah.
Talk to us a little bit about that story.
Jenny Dumont Radler (03:51):
So being pregnant is I have a, also a 31 year old son.
So I had been pregnant before.
So I knew what to experience.
And it was all very exciting.
It was.
combining our two families together.
Until I was 20 weeks pregnant andI had my ultrasound for us to find
out if it was a girl or a boy andmake sure everybody is healthy.
And the
Cliff Duvernois (04:10):
routine,
Jenny Dumont Radler (04:11):
part of the routine stuff.
The x ray tech was concerned becauseher nose looked abnormal, abnormally
large and say they sent us toa second tier obstetrician, Dr.
Wechter in Saginaw.
And it was then he foundthat she had a cleft.
Cleft lip.
They didn't know how badit was, but I had a choice.
(04:32):
I could either because of the cleftlip and because of the two vessel cord,
the possibility of her having trisomy13 were high and I could find out if
she had it with an amniocentesis ornot do anything and just wait and see
because if she did have trisomy 13,then she would not live long past birth.
Cliff Duvernois (04:52):
Oh, okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (04:54):
I remember that day my mother in law was with
me at the time my husband must
Cliff Duvernois (04:58):
have been crushing.
Jenny Dumont Radler (04:59):
It was very hard.
I went straight to my church becauseI just didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to do.
I want to find out if she has trisomy 13.
I wasn't going to abort her.
Even if she did, but then you have to gothrough the rest of your pregnancy knowing
that this child isn't going to live.
Or do I not do anything and justhope and pray that she's okay?
Cliff Duvernois (05:21):
Right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (05:22):
It was the most, it was a, you would think that it would
be an easy decision, but it was not.
So I sought counsel frommy, my priest at the time.
He talked to me about it.
Of course, I'm crying.
I can't stop crying.
And he just finally looked at meand he says, knowledge is power.
And I said, okay.
So I decided to do the amniocentesisand that's when they found out her, it
(05:44):
was a bilateral cleft lip and palate,a midline bilateral cleft lip and
palate, which mean it was her sinuseswere open all the way up to her brain.
Cliff Duvernois (05:52):
Oh, so literally it's like, is, are
you saying there's like no bone?
Jenny Dumont Radler (05:56):
No, she had the, they, she had no, no
palate to the roof of her mouth.
We had to use special bottles forher to feed because she couldn't,
So her first year of life withsix surgeries that she had to go
through and yeah, that was tough.
It's not, not easy handing your child overto a surgeon when they're two months old.
Cliff Duvernois (06:15):
No, it's not.
And did you, did you at everypoint going through this, did you
ever stop and like maybe ask God?
All the time.
When this was happening, orwhat you, I, I blamed myself.
Okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (06:27):
And my journey and my faith was a big part of getting past
that because I was baptized in 2001.
I had never been baptized before, andso I converted to Catholicism, and I
got to be baptized when I was in my 30s.
And so I went through the entire spanof what a young student would go through
(06:51):
when they're getting baptized and do theirconfirmation and their first communion
and, repentance and all that stuff.
I was an adult, so I reallycould grasp that concept.
I'll never forget after it was probablyfive or six years after Emma was
born and I thought, Okay, what didI do when I was pregnant with her?
Did I use some cleaner thatI wasn't supposed to do?
(07:13):
Did I drink something beforeI found out I was pregnant?
Did I get exposed to something?
Did I injure myself?
And you just cannot getrid of that guilt feeling.
Cliff Duvernois (07:23):
Yeah, it's hard to let it go.
Yes.
Jenny Dumont Radler (07:25):
But then, it just, it was one of those things when I finally
decided that I was going to start APlace for Grace, I forgave myself.
Cliff Duvernois (07:35):
Oh, that's you.
Jenny Dumont Radler (07:37):
I forgave myself so that I could carry on without that
heavy burden for Emma and for otherkids, because it's a lot to carry.
It's to think that you harmed thischild and that she's never going
to have a normal life like youwould want your daughter to have.
Cliff Duvernois (07:55):
So let's, I'd like to take a step back here
because you mentioned before aboutTurning Emma over to the surgeon
when she was just two months old,
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:03):
two months old, they had to put in a Latham appliance
to try to widen her mouth a little bitso that teeth could start growing in.
Cliff Duvernois (08:11):
Oh, my goodness.
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:13):
Yeah.
Cliff Duvernois (08:13):
And then I could just imagine from here.
It was probably just surgery after surgery
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:18):
every two to three
months.
She first the latham applianceand then they did the first lip
closure because she had so, somuch of her of her lip was missing.
They had to do it in two surgeries.
So they did the first lip closure,which was the interior one.
And I know that sounds weird, but itwasn't the exterior part of the lip.
(08:38):
It was just the interior tissues.
And she had to wear a bar thatwas across her face that you know,
would push her cheeks together.
And she had to wear splints on her armsso she couldn't pull at it for two weeks.
Cliff Duvernois (08:51):
Oh my goodness.
Jenny Dumont Radler (08:52):
But you know what?
She was the happiest little girl.
You would, you would never know.
I never stopped her.
I mean, but it was stressful for sure.
And that was a tough surgery.
We had to go to U of M.
They have a cranial facialmaxillofacial surgery in Ann
Cliff Duvernois (09:05):
Arbor.
Yeah.
Jenny Dumont Radler (09:06):
U
of M in Ann Arbor.
And then three months later theydid the exterior of her lip.
And that was really tough obviously.
And then they had to do Take out someteeth, because her tissue, teeth were
coming in, inverted in her mouth.
Cliff Duvernois (09:22):
Right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (09:23):
And then they did the palate, which that was four hour surgery.
Wow.
And she was just over a year old by then.
And so they did the palate shecouldn't hear for her first
three months of life either.
So she had to have six sets of tubes.
So we were involved with early on.
from literally day one.
And they came to the house and wetaught her sign language and because she
(09:44):
couldn't talk until, for a long time.
So she's, I mean, this, that girl,you think anybody is resilient.
That girl is so resilientand she's so happy.
Cliff Duvernois (09:53):
I feel so pathetic right now.
Jenny Dumont Radler (09:55):
I do too.
I've, I'm a better person because of herand knowing that she's, she's happy and
thankfully she doesn't know any differentbecause that would break my heart.
Cliff Duvernois (10:09):
With regards to the surgeries and I'm, I'm, I'm coming from
a complete place of ignorance for thiswhen it comes to the surgeries, because
you're talking before about, you know,having to, where the special brace and,
and put in, put the palate and stuff.
And, but I'm also thinking too about thefact that how much growing is going on.
So is this something where it's justevery few years, she's going to have
(10:29):
to have another surgery or is it, isit something that, that grows with her?
How does that, How does that work?
Jenny Dumont Radler (10:36):
She's had a bone graft done.
Because she didn't havea bridge in her mouth,
Cliff Duvernois (10:41):
you
Jenny Dumont Radler (10:43):
know, would close.
So she had a bone graft.
They took bone from her hip.
When she was I want to say shewas like nine years old, ten years
old, and graft a bone up there.
And then two years ago, she had tohave expanders put in to open up
her mouth a little bit more so thatsome of her teeth could come down.
Because her mouth doesn't close.
She has a severe underbite.
(11:04):
So her mouth doesn't close all the way.
So her face does grow and they monitor it.
We go to a cleft palateclinic at U of M every year.
We just went actually in February andthey monitor how far her mouth grows.
So like her chin can grow out,but this part of her face won't.
(11:25):
And so she
Cliff Duvernois (11:26):
that's right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (11:27):
Yeah.
So it doesn't grow.
If it doesn't grow right, they want, theysometimes would want to do surgery on it.
Which would entail breaking her jaw,expanding it out, and I said, no.
This girl's been through enough.
She's beautiful the way she is.
I don't want to change her face.
The only thing they're left to do is,later this year, they're going to do
(11:48):
a little nasal work on her, becauseher nose is really, really flat.
She has a hard time with breathingand mucus and stuff, so they're going
to lift her nose up a little bit.
Cliff Duvernois (11:56):
Okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (11:56):
but when Dr.
Henning did her first lip surgeryhere, he tucked in, he's, there's
live tissue that's tucked into hernose that they'll be able to use, so.
Cliff Duvernois (12:05):
Now, let me, because you said this before, and it kind of
caught my attention when you said,she's beautiful just the way she is.
Jenny Dumont Radler (12:10):
She is.
Cliff Duvernois (12:11):
Was there ever a point in time during this process that you
actually said to yourself, you know what?
God, thank you for thisbeautiful gift you've given me.
Yes.
Jenny Dumont Radler: several times, actually. (12:21):
undefined
Because after she was.
Her pallet was closed and she got tostart eating food and then she started
going to school and her first IEP.
After that, I think I got to be a littlebit more comfortable with thanking God
and I believed in my heart that Godchose me to have Emma because of what
(12:47):
I'm doing now for so many other kids.
And I, I believe that Iwas chosen to have her.
Cliff Duvernois (12:54):
And with that we're going to take a break to thank our sponsors and
we're going to talk a lot more about whatyou're doing for so many beautiful kids
that are located in the area for audience.
We'll be back after this quick break.
We are talking with Jenny froma A Place for Grace located
in Saginaw from Michigan.
And, uh, we will see you after the break.
Are you enjoying this episode?
(13:15):
Well, I can tell youthere's a lot more to come.
Jump over to TotalMichigan.
com, enter your email address,and get on our mailing list.
You'll get a list of the topfive episodes for the show.
Along with that, you'll getall kinds of behind the scenes
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(13:36):
Hello, everyone.
Welcome back to total Michigan, wherewe interview ordinary Michiganders
doing some pretty extraordinary things.
I'm your host.
Cliff DuVernois.
Today, we are talking to Miss Jenny,A Place for Grace, a beautiful
organization that's doing wonderfulthings for kids with special needs.
(13:57):
And Jenny, before the break, we weretalking about, we were actually walking
through, uh, your journey, uh, withEmma and a lot of the, uh, trials that
you had to go through the numeroussurgeries that you had to, uh, try to
give her some semblance of, uh, A normallife and what I want to do now is I
(14:17):
want to just take a couple of minuteshere and explore how A Place for Grace
came about because you've got Emma.
She's clearly special needs.
So how did that processstart on your journey?
Jenny Dumont Radler (14:33):
I have always been a promoter and supporter of a daycare
and sending a child to daycare becausethe socialization is so important.
But because of all of Emma's surgerieswhen she was younger, we waited until
she was 18 months old to go to a daycare.
Okay.
So we started her at St.
Stephens, and they actuallywere wonderful with her.
(14:54):
She was young, so she was still growing.
A lot of her disabilities did notalways show up until she started school.
When she started school at fourin the ECDD program she You could,
that's when all of her developmentaldisabilities and cognitive impairments
and stuff started coming to light,realizing that she was not going to
(15:15):
be learning on the same path as everyother child, but I was always working.
I was working as a paralegal for 13 years.
Cliff Duvernois (15:22):
Somebody's got to pay the bills.
Jenny Dumont Radler (15:23):
My husband at the time was a teacher.
She went to after school care,and over the summer, she would
go to a daycare over the summer.
The daycare that she was at in, wasin Saginaw, and I got called, I think,
four times in a week to come pick herup because she was having a meltdown.
And, I show up, and this is a veryvivid memory of mine, I show up and the
(15:47):
caregiver is holding my daughter, Emma.
And she's nine or eight holding her withher legs wrapped around her like in a
bear hug and Emma screaming her head off.
Cliff Duvernois (15:58):
Oh my goodness.
Jenny Dumont Radler (15:59):
And they said they were doing this because Emma
was going to hurt herself or she waskicking and hitting other people.
I was like, what?
That's not my daughter.
I mean, she's tiny.
I immediately took her and gother in the car and she was fine.
I said, Emma, what happened?
And she says, well, theydidn't want to play with me.
(16:19):
And she couldn't understandthat because she wanted to play.
And she was really into playing catsand dogs at that time in her life.
She loved to crawl aroundand play cats and dogs.
Her name was Black Ears when shewas a dog, that was her name.
but when you're a certain age, whenyou're five years old in the daycare
system, you are considered school age.
(16:40):
And school age kids have a ratioof one caregiver for 18 kids.
Mind you, you're having five yearolds all the way up to a 12 year old
in the same room with one caregiver.
Oh boy.
So here you have this little five,six year old girl who's trying
to crawl around and play dogs.
Kids are making fun of her.
(17:01):
Nobody will play with her because,she's not playing like everybody else.
And so she just would have theseemotional meltdowns because
nobody would do anything with her.
She needed to be in a classroom withthe younger kids because that was her.
That's where she was at.
That's where she was at.
So I remember leaving that day afterEmma was telling me that nobody would
(17:21):
play with her, leaving that day thinking,there's got to be a better place.
There's got to be a daycarefor kids with special needs.
I mean, there are over 4, 000 kids withspecial needs in Saginaw County alone.
I mean, you could look it up on theIDEA website if it's still Active?
I don't know.
(17:41):
But there's at least 4, 000 kidswith an IEP or some sort of special
needs in Saginaw County at that time.
That was back in 2013.
Emma was eight and Istarted calling around.
I'm like, where's there adaycare for special needs kids?
And I didn't, I couldn't find one.
So I had our first boardmeeting in my house.
(18:04):
my friend Linda and a coupleof other people that I knew,
I said, Hey, I have this idea.
I want to start a daycarefor kids with special needs.
my daughter's name is Emma Grace, and Isaid, I want to call it A Place for Grace.
so we met in my living room, we endedup, I, I found a friend of mine who was
a business consultant, and he knew how tostart companies, because I didn't know.
Cliff Duvernois (18:25):
You're paralegal.
Jenny Dumont Radler (18:26):
I was a paralegal, I owned my own referral marketing
company, I did some things on myI mean, I was working on my own.
Doing coaching and training.
So I hired this guy.
He started, we did a SWOT analysis.
So we would bring people in fromthe community and we said, okay,
this is what we're thinking of.
What do you guys think?
And then, they get throughall of their ideas.
(18:47):
What are kind of, someobstacles and things.
So we finally formulated a plan,but then it came to a point like,
okay I'm ready to move forward.
We got to do something.
It's been six months.
It doesn't take this long.
To me, because I'm right.
It doesn't take that long.
And he's like, Oh, no, you're good.
You got a year or more.
I'm like, No, that's notgoing to work for me.
(19:08):
So I found somebody hewent to the wayside.
I found somebody else.
And I was really excited about it.
And I thought she was going to be theone because she talked all the talks.
But she then she infiltrated my board.
She had all of my friends, close friendswho knew Emma were board members.
She had them all sign.
(19:28):
Non disclosure agreements and kicked meoff the board and then I found out I got
wind from one of them told me that shewas dismantling the board because things
weren't going the way she wanted it.
Cliff Duvernois (19:41):
So I was like, I'm completely confused by this by the way.
Why did it was there any reason
Jenny Dumont Radler (19:47):
why?
The only thing I can think of and whatsomebody told me later was that, that
this person that we hired to, to bethe board president and because I was
still working, I wasn't planning onworking at the daycare, I wanted to
start it and then let the board run it.
I was told that the only reasonI could think of was that she was
(20:08):
trying to take it for herself.
I I got wind of it in May of 2014, thatshe was going to dissolve the board.
So I went and started another LLC andI found a location inside the First
United Methodist Church over on Gratiot.
And they were going to letme use four rooms for free.
(20:30):
I, my husband told me at the time,you have to decide if you're going
to continue with your own referralmarketing coaching or if you're
going to go and work at the daycare.
Cliff Duvernois (20:39):
Yeah.
Jenny Dumont Radler (20:40):
And I remember sitting down with
Barbara Littles in Saginaw andI said, I don't know what to do.
I really love what I'm doingand coaching and training.
How can I just turnaway from this daycare?
And she just looked at me and she says,well, what do you want your legacy to be?
Oh, I said, okay, I'm done.
(21:02):
I'm done.
So June 1st, I gave up myfranchise that I had and I went
full board into A Place for Grace.
I applied for our license and that wasJune 1st, applied for our license, got it,
got everything ready to go at the daycare.
Cause when you apply for a license toget accepted, you literally like have to
(21:24):
be like, you're opening up the next day.
Cliff Duvernois (21:26):
Yeah,
Jenny Dumont Radler: everything has to be in place. (21:26):
undefined
I took it upon myself to to make myselfmeet with my licensing consultant.
I got my license approved end of July.
Cliff Duvernois (21:36):
And in addition to all this too, I can imagine that there's
probably state certifications becauseyou're going to have kids in there.
It's just
Jenny Dumont Radler (21:44):
a state licensing through LARA.
Um, you just have all of theserequirements that you have to, making
sure that the, the safety is there, allof the fire insurance, and we had to
have, the entire church had to be approvedbecause the kids could run in the hallway.
So, and we had to put the bulletin boardsin this church, and this church is big.
Cliff Duvernois (22:04):
Right.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:04):
Bulletin boards in this church were not fire protected.
So we had to go and paint everysingle bulletin board with a
fire protectant to get approved.
Cliff Duvernois (22:14):
Sweet
Moses.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:16):
But it was worth it.
We were there for, six years, seven years.
And
Cliff Duvernois (22:20):
then you outgrew that space.
Jenny Dumont Radler: Well, they evicted us. (22:22):
undefined
Cliff Duvernois (22:24):
Okay, so you had to go find another place, someplace
where they won't evict you.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:29):
Right.
I, uh, found a space inside of the GratiotPlace Plaza over off Gratiot and Center.
And it was the formerCrossFit whip gym down there.
And so I Leased that space and we had tolay all the flooring we did because it
was just concrete, just big concrete room.
(22:49):
And so now that's wherewe're at right now.
But in November of 2022, I bought abuilding across the street from us.
I'm sorry.
Cliff Duvernois (22:58):
You're okay.
Jenny Dumont Radler (22:59):
I bought the building across the street from us,
the old Ferguson plumbing building,renovated the front part of that.
So we are waiting to move into there.
it's an 18, 000 square foot building.
So our plan is to really expandour services and offerings.
When we, as, as we can, causeit's obviously very costly to do
(23:19):
any kind of construction, but wedo have 3, 500 square feet that's
already remodeled waiting to go.
And move all of our infants and toddlersand preschoolers over there and expand.
Cliff Duvernois (23:28):
That is just beautiful.
And I want to circle back on somethingthat, you know, that you mentioned before.
And that is, it's not just daycare.
That's babysitting.
You have people coming in there tohelp to teach the kids, you know, like
how to, I mean, this, this to me isabove and beyond just a simple daycare.
Where did this idea, come from tostart offering all of these additional
(23:52):
things like, Hey, if we've gotyour kids, let's work with them.
Jenny Dumont Radler (23:54):
Well, because all of these kids that we care for,
I think of as my own and what, wouldI want my daughter to be exposed to
Cliff Duvernois (24:01):
all beautiful?
Jenny Dumont Radler: What would I want Emma? (24:02):
undefined
How do I want her to be treated?
And that's how I want allthese kids to be treated.
So What we do is I bring in people fromthe community, like I would bring in
a BCBA and they trained us how to do,board certified behavioral, analyst.
So they're the ones that run operateand run ABA centers, applied behavioral
(24:25):
analysis centers for kids withautism or any kind of behavior that
they need a behavior modification.
So you mentioned itbefore, like if a child is.
Maybe seven years old and they haven't yetlearned how to talk or feed themselves.
ABA takes those small goals and comesup with a plan to achieve that one goal.
(24:47):
And, it could be anything.
It could, it could be, just taking asquare peg and putting it in the square
hole and if they can do that five times,then they're going to master that.
And then you can scaffoldit from there and you can
continue to build their success.
To me, that was what was important.
And as a parent of a special needsmom, I know the challenges, is.
(25:09):
That you're going through with work,the medical your own relationships.
And that's so stressful and how to keep.
Such a positive attitudefor these children.
I wanted to create a space that theywere cared for the way they should be.
Instead of, you come to myspace and you adapt to what I'm
doing, it's we adapt to you.
(25:31):
And so it, we use the community, hada lot of people come in and train us.
I went to, back to school again.
And I got my CDA, which isChild Development Accreditation.
All of my staff is highly educatedand we have good retention and we're a
team, we're there for the same goal foreveryone to make these children feel
(25:55):
loved and accepted and cared for the waythat I would want my daughter cared for.
And so the people that I have workingfor me have the biggest hearts.
It's a lot of work because you, if youhave a room full of 13 preschoolers,
which is two and a half to five.
And four of them have some sort of specialneeds, non verbal ADHD, any physical
(26:18):
disabilities, any, anything, it's a lot.
Cliff Duvernois (26:21):
Right.
Let me ask you this question here, becauseit sounds like what you're doing over
there is just absolutely incredible.
I think so.
And the question that I have for youthere some, Is there a story, maybe of
somebody that you were able to reach,maybe some parents were just completely
overjoyed because you could offerthem an option that nobody else could?
(26:44):
Is there, is there any storieslike that to stand out to you?
Jenny Dumont Radler: There's lots of stories. (26:47):
undefined
I opened, my first daywas in September of 2014.
It was the day after school started.
We take kids that are older than 13.
So, licensing in Michiganstops at the age of 12.
Once you turn 13, there's nolicense requirements for watching
kids, because they expect, I think,a 13 year old would stay home.
(27:08):
Obviously, my daughter wasnine and I wasn't going to
kick her out when she was 13.
So we took kids that are older than 13.
We had a lady, at the time shestarted with me, she was 26.
She was, wheelchair, not bound,but she used a wheelchair.
She could walk, but she was cognitivelyprobably like a 11 month old.
(27:30):
And we had to do everything for her,but we found out some of the things that
she liked and she would dance and shewould get up and walk around and dance.
We take her on field trips, we, andshe would sit there and, she couldn't
talk, but you could tell she wasinvolved in, in, in what we were doing.
And so.
Right.
We would just have our, these olderpeople with our school agers, and the
(27:54):
school agers would help with them.
Ashley is, now 30, what is she,35 now, and we've taken care
of her for the last 11 years.
that's just a special place inmy heart for her, but we have, a
little boy that was six years old.
He has Down syndrome.
He ended up going to homecomingand then prom with my daughter.
So, and, uh, oh, we just, there's just.
(28:17):
There's so many stories, but the one mostrecently was, is a story of a foster kid.
Because we took a lot of fosterkids, because a lot of foster kids
are being taken away from parents,typically because they have some sort
of disability and they can't handle it.
So, this couple was adopting thisfoster child from another country.
Oh, okay.
(28:38):
And he was autistic.
And so he started with us when hewas three and totally nonverbal,
severely autistic, would not beable to sit down for a minute, would
throw things, dumped everything,hitting, screaming, I mean, just.
Just, you name it, it wasjust, it was really intense.
(28:59):
We had to, I had to bring ina one on one with him, and I
will do that in a heartbeat.
Most places won't, but if I needto, I will bring a one on one
to work with a child so thatthey can show some successes.
Well, slowly but surely, westarted learning about him.
He likes to play games, he likes tolisten to music, and we would just
work with him and work with him andwork with him, and now he comes in
(29:22):
and he, he went to Disney World.
Last week with his parents and did he usedto be a runner not a runner anymore now
He does he did start school also and hecan talk And have full sentences with you.
And It's an amazing story AndI mean I have so many of them.
There's just so many.
(29:43):
Well, how much time we got?
I know I could go throughall of these kids.
I mean, The kids that we've had and theexperiences I've, I've had with children.
Some of them got physical.
But I'm always there andI'm their safe place.
And we work through it, you know, You justwork through it as love first compassion.
(30:05):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And just love that child first,first and foremost, just love them.
Cliff Duvernois (30:10):
Jenny, if somebody is listening to this and they want to
reach out, they wanna maybe find youonline, stop by A Place for Grace.
How can, how can they do that?
Jenny Dumont Radler (30:20):
Well, we're located at 4 8 8 4 Gratiot Road, suite 19.
just on the corner of Gratiot and Center.
We have a website, A Placefor Grace childcare.org.
and of course we have a Facebookpage, a social media page that
probably needs to be updated.
But, you know, and we are, we dowork with the Saginaw Community
(30:41):
Foundation to accept donations.
Because that does help with ouroperations, because we do, we
have a lower ratio of caregiversto kids than any other daycare.
and it's based on age.
So, like I told you, the school agersfrom 5 to 12 is a 1 to 18 ratio.
Five year old, or excuse me, fouryear olds is a one to ten ratio.
(31:02):
two and a half year olds isone to eight ratio, and infants
and toddlers are one to four.
Anybody younger than two and a half.
We typically have a one to four ratioin both our preschool and school age
room because we're interacting witheach of these kids, on the, on their
level, on the ground and working withthem, teaching them how to be friends to
each other and accepting of each other.
(31:24):
Any help is always greatly appreciated.
Certainly.
Cliff Duvernois (31:27):
Jenny, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today.
Really do appreciate it.
Jenny Dumont Radler (31:30):
Thank you very much.
Cliff Duvernois (31:32):
And for audience, you can always roll on over to total michigan.
com and click on Jenny's interview,uh, and get the links and the address
that she was just talking about there.
We'll see you next time when wetalk to another Michigander doing
some pretty extraordinary things.
We'll see you then.
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