Childcare projects for factory employees
Sukup Manufacturing's Bin Town Child Care opened in Sheffield, Iowa, United States, in November 2024. The estimated $3.3 million project received a $1.25 million state matching grant. Capacity was 112 children; around 60 places were occupied by October 2025, approximately one-third by Sukup employees' children. Chief administrative officer and general counsel Emily Schmitt described it as serving the wider community.
Toyota's general manager for people and property services, Myriah Sweeney, identified seven childcare centres near Blue Springs, Mississippi, during the automaker's assessment. All were full and had waiting lists. Toyota's existing Georgetown and Princeton centres also had two- to three-month waiting lists. Sweeney said care provision needed to accommodate manufacturing shifts, including arrangements for children to sleep during overnight care. Intel confirmed in October 2025 that its childcare benefits remained available to employees.
Toyota's new centres and opening plans
Toyota's August 12, 2025 programme adds four childcare centres linked to manufacturing locations. Each has capacity measured across two shifts. The Liberty, North Carolina, centre opened that August; the other locations retained future opening schedules:
- Liberty: up to 312 children;
- Blue Springs: up to 238, autumn 2025;
- Huntsville, Alabama: up to 274, 2026;
- Buffalo, West Virginia: up to 240, by 2027.
Third-party providers will operate the centres around plant schedules. Programmes cover ages six weeks to five years, with age-based learning, kitchens, STEM rooms, movement spaces and playgrounds. Toyota also planned its Princeton expansion for September 2025, raising capacity to 366 across two shifts. Its Georgetown facility has provided around-the-clock care since 1993. National Association for the Education of Young Children accreditation remained a process the sites would undergo.
Sheffield's construction partnership
Sukup, West Fork School District and United Bank & Trust Company formed Sheffield Childcare Expansion to develop Bin Town. The consortium secured a Future Ready Iowa matching grant, and local and state representatives attended its November 16, 2023 groundbreaking. Sukup employed more than 600 people drawn from nine northern Iowa counties. A 2022 city survey had identified over 90 families seeking childcare in the Sheffield area; some travelled up to 30 miles for existing providers.
King Construction was selected to build Atura Architecture's design, with opening then projected for late summer 2024. UBTC president John Trewin and Iowa Workforce Development policy adviser Kathy Leggett spoke at the ceremony. Governor Kim Reynolds did not attend, but sent a letter supporting the project and Schmitt's work. Emily Schmitt brought experience as a former chair of the governor's Child Care Task Force to the planning. Sukup's community and internal communications coordinator Amy Fleming identified further fundraising and partnerships as necessary alongside the grant.
Selecting Bin Town's operator
Colts Corner Daycare was selected to provide care at Bin Town in May 2024. The provider was already operating in Belmond, led by president Bradi Arnold and director Maya Varner. Its existing centre had opened with support from a similar grant after local residents organised around an identified childcare need. Colts Corner would extend that operating experience to Sheffield, where the new building was still under construction.
The operator-selection announcement anticipated services beginning in autumn 2024. The West Fork School District, United Bank & Trust Company and Sukup partnership had recognised the shortage in 2022 and obtained Future Ready Iowa support. Colts Corner planned to contact families and prospective staff already on waiting lists. Recruitment covered the Bin Town director and additional centre staff, while the project continued seeking donations and maintaining a list of supporters. Amy Fleming remained the named Sukup contact for project questions.
Intel's benefits and backup-care pilots
Intel set out an expansion of childcare benefits on July 8, 2024, following employee feedback and discussions with providers, governments and the CHIPS Program Office. Vice president of total rewards and global benefits Amber Wiseley described affordability and reliable access as goals. From autumn 2024, Intel planned a second provider network with discounts and a navigation tool, doubling the number of near-site centres available through its networks. Discussions with the CHIPS Program Office considered care needs across the semiconductor workforce, including technicians, construction workers and apprentices.
Other measures included increasing both the reimbursement amount and duration of backup childcare, and piloting reimbursement for non-exempt employees. A near-site backup-care centre was planned to operate around the clock for children aged six weeks to 13 years. Intel also intended suppliers to offer support, including provider discounts, to contingent workers at its sites. These were announced programme changes and pilots; the announcement did not establish completed delivery of every measure.
Arthrex's staged childcare network
Arthrex's Pendleton, South Carolina, childcare centre opened on October 7, 2024. The company partnered with Bright Horizons to operate three centres, adding planned locations at its Naples headquarters and Ave Maria manufacturing campus. In January 2025, Naples was scheduled for that spring and Ave Maria for spring 2026.
Full-time employees at Arthrex Manufacturing Inc. South Carolina could enrol children aged six months to six years. The curriculum includes science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, interactive playrooms, creative-thinking stations and outdoor activity areas. Human resources director Melanie McLane described aligning care hours with factory shifts as a benefit. The learning approach and teacher-to-child ratios were designed to support individual attention and preparation for school. Senior benefits administrator Ana Requena returned from maternity leave when the centre opened. She described visiting her baby during work as a benefit of having childcare nearby.
Hormel's construction stage in Austin
Hormel Foods broke ground for its Austin, Minnesota, early childhood education centre on May 3, 2023. The 13,000-square-foot facility was designed for up to 130 children, including those of employees and other residents of Mower County. Hormel selected Bright Horizons as its childcare partner and Benike Construction to begin building immediately. At that stage, the company expected the facility to open in spring 2024.
Human resources business-partner manager Angie Bissen expected the new centre to help recruit and retain working parents seeking affordable childcare. She also described it as an additional local option. The groundbreaking speakers included Hormel senior vice president of human resources Katie Larson, senior manager of corporate properties Jeff Holt, Bright Horizons divisional operations vice president Jami Behrens and Austin Area Chamber of Commerce president Elaine Hansen. Their participation linked the employer, operator, property team and local business community in the construction-stage event.
Iowa's reopened employer infrastructure grant
Iowa reopened its Child Care Business Incentive grant on November 20, 2024, supporting existing projects and new employer applicants. The programme, launched in 2022, helped businesses and consortiums fund infrastructure for onsite or local childcare facilities. The new 2.0 opportunity required applicants to pay W-2 wages to at least 75 full-time employees and to have a principal business other than providing childcare.
Awards were reimbursement-based and required an equal private match. Funding could support new buildings or expansions operated by employers or local-provider partners. Priority went to high-demand areas, additional places across age groups and onsite centres. Existing 1.0 recipients could request further funding for active projects. Applications were scheduled to close at 2 p.m. on December 23, 2024, following a December 3 information webinar. American Rescue Plan Act funds supported this historical round.
January 2025 awards and projected places
Iowa announced $14 million of employer childcare grants on January 6, 2025. Existing projects received $3.6 million for an estimated 225 additional places. New projects received $10.4 million for an estimated 649 places. The two categories combined were projected to create nearly 875 places statewide. These figures described awarded funding and expected capacity from the projects, rather than the number of children already enrolled in newly completed centres.
The awards covered both additional support for the original 1.0 programme's recipients and new projects under version 2.0. Employers could use the funding to build or expand facilities for their employees, providing care themselves or partnering with a local operator. Iowa prioritised projects in high-demand locations, capacity increases spanning multiple age groups and onsite provision. Governor Kim Reynolds described employer childcare as part of a worker-retention strategy. Iowa Workforce Development executive director Beth Townsend emphasised partnerships between employers and communities and encouraged additional collaborations. Both views accompanied the funding announcement.
The scale of a third-party provider
Bright Horizons' March 2025 company figures describe a provider operating more than 1,000 childcare centres and schools worldwide, with total capacity of approximately 115,000. Its regional footprint included around 600 centres in North America, 340 in Europe, 80 in Australia and two in India. The company served more than 1,450 employer clients across industries, including over 220 Fortune 500 companies. Those company-wide counts encompass a broader market than the individual manufacturing projects.
Founded in 1986, Bright Horizons had more than 32,000 employees globally and over 18,000 in the United States. Its geographical reach also included the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The provider's services distinguished early education and preschool from backup care, elder care and wider family support. Separate offerings covered workforce education, student-loan support and career pathways. Its teacher-degree programme had enrolled 3,500 teachers, with almost 1,000 receiving associate's or bachelor's degrees. These are provider-wide programme totals, rather than staffing or qualification counts for a particular factory-linked childcare centre.
Inspired Beginnings opens in May 2024
Hormel celebrated the official opening of Inspired Beginnings Learning Academy on May 7, 2024. The Austin facility represented an investment of $5 million and retained its 13,000-square-foot design and capacity for up to 130 children. It served Hormel employees and community residents throughout Mower County, with provision for children aged six months through school age. Bright Horizons operated the centre.
Operating hours were Monday to Friday, from 6:15 a.m. until 6 p.m. Its Discovery Driven Learning approach combined educator-developed curricula with health and safety policies. Centre director Bryson McCargar described programmes intended to develop language, mathematics, science and social skills for elementary school, together with support for learning at home. Angie Bissen linked the investment to the importance of childcare identified through research and conversations with other local employers. The opening established the facility's availability; capacity remained an upper limit rather than a count of occupied places.
A school-age programme in Naples
Arthrex Academy's Naples programme included a wellness-focused summer camp for school-age children in 2025. The camp took place at the company's global headquarters campus. Its activities combined sports and movement with sessions intended to support physical and mental wellbeing. Arthrex employees and invited guests led the programme, extending the onsite childcare centre's activities to older children during the summer.
Florida Gulf Coast University's men's basketball team conducted a basketball clinic. Finance employee Matt Winfield and product-management employee Ivonne Schmid introduced campers to pickleball. Magali Chauvin from Arthrex's wellness team led yoga sessions.
Arthrex's first-year follow-up in 2026
Arthrex Academy – Naples marked its first anniversary in a follow-up published on April 3, 2026. The centre had opened in March 2025. Director Samantha Seeburger welcomed families, staff and partners to the celebration. President and founder Reinhold Schmieding, human resources senior vice president Kathy Sparrow, human resources and organisational-development senior director Mike Boose and Naples Comprehensive Health chief culture officer Jennifer Hart attended.
Teachers organised outdoor games, while other activities included mini golf, crafts, face painting and a photographic booth. Families painted tiles for the academy walls. A partnership with Southwest Florida nonprofit Heroes Unmasked combined a visit from costumed volunteers with a preceding toy drive for local children. Senior business systems analyst Sharad Patel described the convenience of the academy's location for his family's work routines. Information-security senior manager Swen Tauber's son Liam had been its first student on opening day. By this April 2026 follow-up, Pendleton's centre was operating and Ave Maria's remained forthcoming.
Manufacturing workforce research in context
The Manufacturing Institute convened four working-group discussions between March and June 2023. Seventeen manufacturers from different sectors and company sizes participated, including Bradford White Corporation and The Chemours Company. Author Anjana Gigi Radhakrishnan synthesised their experiences with flexibility for production workers in a December 2023 white paper. In the first-quarter 2023 Manufacturers' Outlook Survey, 46.8% of responding companies offered flexible scheduling to production employees. Separate employee research cited in the paper found nearly half considered flexibility a reason to stay, while 63.5% would seek more flexibility in another role.
Childcare also appeared in the evidence discussed by the working group. In research cited from 2022, 49.2% of manufacturing leaders had heard female employees raise insufficient childcare support as a challenge, compared with 8% hearing it from male employees. Companies described compressed weeks, shift swapping, flexible part-time work and other arrangements. Their experiences differed: some approaches met production requirements, while others were reconsidered. Working-group participants described their own workplace arrangements; survey percentages referred to separate respondent samples and reporting periods.
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