Caring Hearts Academy
Tracy Nayar
March 31, 2020
The SBDC helps Caring Hearts find success
After one year, Caring Hearts Academy opened with a bank loan and equity of $205,000, created 17 jobs, and doubled enrollment.
In a little over a year, Shannon Facchina turned a love for children into a successful South Hill business, Caring Hearts Academy. “We started one year ago with 23 families, and yesterday my enrollment increased to 45,” Shannon says.
The Longwood SBDC, Shannon notes, has been with her every step of the way. “I kept children in my home for nine years,” she relates. “Then I worked in a church pre-school for 11 years.” When she heard about the grant program offered by the Virginia Growth Alliance (VGA), she decided to participate. That’s where she met and began working with SBDC Business Analyst Brandon Hennessey. “That’s how I became familiar with the Longwood SBDC,” she adds.
“During the competition, Brandon helped me put together all the numbers and demographics I needed to develop a budget. That helped me realize that I actually could start my own business.” Compiling this data gave Shannon the answers to important questions. “There was another licensed childcare facility in our area,” she continues. “Did we have enough children to support another facility? We looked at median income to see how many families in the area would want private childcare and who could afford it.”
The SBDC helped Shannon write a business plan. “That’s what I took to the bank when it was time to purchase the building,” she explains. “That plan was pivotal to obtaining the loan.” While she did not receive a VGA grant, Shannon considers her connection with the SBDC to be more valuable than dollars and cents. “The SBDC helped me develop everything — from my handbook to my budget to my pricing,” she adds.
Caring Hearts Academy continues to thrive as it enters its second year of operation. “We started with seven employees,” Shannon notes. “Now we have 17 on the payroll, and we’ve doubled our enrollment.”
Parents appreciate the educational component Caring Hearts provides. “We use a child-friendly curriculum for each age group from six months to kindergarten,” she explains. “Our goal is to get children ready for public education, while allowing them to be little for as long as they can — something else I’m passionate about.”
Shannon plans to keep in touch with the SBDC on a regular basis. “I will continue to check in with Brandon every other month as things come up,” she says. “I feel very comfortable working with the SBDC, and future plans for the business are on an annual-review basis. The SBDC has so many resources to help you build your knowledge base,” she concludes. “The SBDC gave me all the tools I needed to start my own business.”
