Exploring Life & Business with Megan Stewart of KidsPark Murfreesboro

Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Stewart.

Hi Megan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Before opening KidsPark Murfreesboro, I never saw myself as a business owner. My daughter, Etta, was born in April of 2018, and while my husband (Preston) and I were overjoyed to have grown our family, we found ourselves needing some extra help. I was lucky to be able to stay at home with Etta but also felt like she was missing out on early socialization by not being in daycare.

I was happy to have the opportunity to stay home with her and didn’t want to trade that for full-time care, but I also wanted her to have the chance to build social skills and early learning outside our home. We also didn’t have a lot of family in the area to help with child care when I happened to be busy with appointments or errands and were looking for a flexible, affordable part-time child care option that would help ease tension in our schedules and provide our daughter with an option to make friends and build those early socialization skills.

While we came across a lot of Mother’s Day Out options, they all had rigid schedules, and I wanted something that I could use on MY schedule. My husband suggested we look at starting a business ourselves that would fit what we were looking for as parents.

As we began researching starting our business, we came across the KidsPark franchise. KidsPark checked all the boxes that we were trying to fill in our business: flexible, on-demand child care that was AFFORDABLE. What I loved about KidsPark was that I had a lot of autonomy to run KidsPark Murfreesboro as my own business. We hit the ground running, and we’ve now been in operation since March 2021!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggle in getting KidsPark off the ground was getting the community to understand what we were offering – on-demand child care for kids ages 2-12 on days, evenings, and weekends. There aren’t a lot of hourly care/drop-in child care facilities out there, and unfortunately, many get a bad reputation for being less than ideal, compared to full-time child care centers.

At KidsPark, we pride ourselves on offering hourly games, activities, and crafts for all kids, and we had to work hard to showcase that engagement with kids. We wanted to be more than just a babysitter; we wanted to offer each kid a great experience every time they stay with us.

In addition to the assumptions that we were essentially just group babysitting, a lot of people would see KidsPark and think it was just for preschoolers. It was a struggle, especially early on, to get families to give our facility a chance.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
What sets KidsPark apart from others is me – I started this business to fill a need that I had as a parent myself.

Everything I do at KidsPark, I do with my daughter in mind. She’s still a big part of our business and is in our center frequently. My sister, Sara Mater, is our Center Director.

She runs the day-to-day operations inside the center and is always coming up with fun new activities for kids to participate in. We run KidsPark as a family business and treat all of the kids in our care as if they were our own.

Contact Info:

• Website: kidspark.com/murfreesboro
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kidspark_murfreesboro/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KidsParkMurfreesboro