At-Home Day Care Provider

Ryan Decelle

It’s impossible to separate Ryan Decelle’s work and home life, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Ryan runs her at-home daycare center for kids in the Poultney, Wells, and Middletown Springs area. Launching her business was as simple as identifying a need and providing the solution.

Ryan was working for the town of Wells when she became pregnant with their second child. Finding a suitable daycare provider for her son during this time, she found out, was surprisingly difficult. After talking with other parents, she discovered she wasn’t alone, so she completed the certification process and launched her very own daycare out of her house...

Ryan has never had to run a single advertisement and has a lengthy waiting list — and it’s easy to see why. Her play-based program favors an imaginative and hands-on environment over a structured learning curriculum. For example, she once set up an obstacle course for the kids and then encouraged them to make their own changes. “Sometimes it’s nice to step back and intervene only if you need to,” she said, “It blows my mind how creative and smart the kids are.”

From nature walks and field trips to picking vegetables and counting chickens’ eggs, each day holds something

new for her daycare kids. Her home and 7-acre property (complete with a few cows, birds, and horses) hold plenty of room for inspiration.

Every day she is reminded that this simpler, country lifestyle is exactly what she envisioned for her family. She says she didn’t always feel safe growing up where she did in Massachusetts, and praises her experience in Rutland County as a safe place to raise her family and be entrusted with the responsibility of caring for other kids in the area.