Amid childcare crisis on Hatteras, local moms work to create nonprofit facility

By Maggie Miles | Outer Banks Voice on September 29, 2025

By Maggie Miles | Outer Banks Voice

When Erin Trant received a letter in July informing her that Little Sprouts Child Care in Frisco, the last remaining licensed childcare facility on Hatteras Island, would close at the end of October because of staffing issues, she was devastated.

As a mother whose two-year-old twins attended the facility and as a local business owner, Trant knew the closure would have serious effects. Aside from a couple of local grandmothers who had stepped up to watch children in their homes, families would be left with virtually no childcare options.

The Sunday after receiving the letter, Trant ran into Dare County Commissioner Mary Ellon Ballance at church and shared the news. “And I was just in tears, because it’s a huge loss for our community, not only for myself, but for the long-term health of the community,” Trant said.

Trant and Ballance teamed up to look for a solution. Ballance quickly began emailing commissioners, education representatives and community leaders to set up a meeting.

At the beginning of August, Trant, along with Kelly Aiken and Whitney Dempsey, two other mothers whose children attended Little Sprouts, joined Ballance for a meeting with several local officials.

The attendees included Dare County Manager Bobby Outten; Chuck Lycett, director of the Dare County Health & Human Services’ Social Services Division; Dare Board of Education Chair David Twitty; Sheila Davies, Director of Health and Human Services; Dare County Schools Superintendent Steve Basnight; and Sara Sampson, executive director of Children and Youth Partnership of Dare County.

During the meeting, the idea of opening a nonprofit childcare facility emerged.

“Daycare is a private business, and the county can’t go in and start a daycare,” Ballance told The Voice. “But how can we support somebody trying to do that? It was a matter of sitting down with the right people at the table to see what that looked like.”

The idea was that if community members opened a nonprofit, the county could form public-private partnerships with it, offering guidance, resources and grants. If successful, Ballance said, the model could be replicated in other communities across the Outer Banks.

Trant, Aiken, and Dempsey agreed to lead the nonprofit effort. Outten, who also serves as county attorney, reviewed the legal requirements and worked with Little Sprouts to extend its closure until December to allow more time. Meanwhile, Trant contacted state leaders and organizations focused on North Carolina’s childcare crisis and learned how dire the situation is statewide.

According to Beth Messersmith, campaign director for the North Carolina chapter of the advocacy group MomsRising, the state has seen 293 childcare programs close since the start of the year, including about 50 in the last month alone.

She attributed the spike to the end of federal emergency funding for childcare providers that was available during the COVID pandemic. That funding expired June 30, 2023. In response, state lawmakers provided stopgap funding in July and November 2024, but that ran out in March of this year.

“Since then, we’ve been seeing this kind of cascading domino effect where childcare centers can’t continue to pay their staff, and so staff are leaving,” Messersmith said.

Before the pandemic, according to Messersmith, the typical wage for a childcare worker was $12 an hour without benefits. With emergency funding, wages rose to $14 an hour, which is still hardly enough to support a family.

On average, she added, parents in North Carolina pay about $11,000 a year per child for care. But with costs for staff, rent, insurance, food, and supplies, childcare providers operate on extremely thin margins.

According to Messersmith, it comes down to market failure.

“Parents can’t afford to pay more, and childcare providers can’t afford to earn less because they can’t pay their teachers any less,” she said. “And it’s really critical to North Carolina, not only because it’s critical for the growth and well-being of the child, but because families rely on childcare to be able to work. The economy relies on those parents going to work to be able to function. And so a crisis in the workforce creates a crisis for all of us, whether we have children at home or not.”

Messersmith noted that the North Carolina House and Senate each have childcare subsidy budget proposals of about $80 million, but lawmakers have yet to agree on a budget.

Advocates estimate it would take closer to $220 million to stabilize the system. Messersmith added that disparities in funding allocations, with 3,000 different subsidy rates set across the state, also need to be addressed.

While state leaders debate the issue, Trant, Aiken, and Dempsey are pursuing their local solution. They are scouting potential spaces for a childcare facility, which Trant said has been challenging. She is also drafting a business plan, developing a budget, and recruiting board members, which is essential for filing nonprofit paperwork.

“I am in awe of them,” Messersmith said. “They are such powerhouses, and I am so inspired by the way they are taking on this issue for their families and their communities. I wish they didn’t have to. They shouldn’t have to. I also know that you never doubt a mom, because moms do incredible things.”