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CEI targets home and center-based businesses that strive to provide the highest quality care to young people. We encourage child care providers to follow Maine Roads to Quality training, and to pursue National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accreditation. We finance businesses that serve low-income families, families with children that have special needs, and immigrant and refugee families. In each of our financing agreements, 20% or more of available slots are dedicated to these families.
For a loan application, click on Apply for a Loan on the left and then download the child care loan application. If the complete application meets CEI preliminary credit criteria, the CEI loan officer will share your application and all submitted information, except personal financial information, with a child care consultant who has been contracted by CEI to review all child care applications. Some of the areas that this specialist will look at include: - compliance with state regulations
- review of all written materials provided with the application, including the parent handbook
- review of the market needs that the applicant is planning to address
- pricing
- overall viability of the plan presented by the applicant.
In most cases, the child care consultant and the loan officer will personally visit the business. The decision process can approximately 2-4 weeks, depending on the complexity of the transaction.
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Kids R Special Child Care Center - The business of child care |
For Peggy Soucy, owner of Kids R Special Child Care Center, her
business is a "work of love." The center has grown from serving a
handful of children in 1992 to 37 children today, half of whom come
from families with low incomes. Like other businesses, running a child
care center in rural Maine requires planning, capital, and a strong
sense of market trends in order to thrive. When Peggy needed a loan to
build a new structure on her property for school aged kids, she turned
to CEI. The loan officer saw Peggy's solid track of growth and was
impressed with the high quality of care she provided. CEI loaned Peggy
$40,000 to construct the new building. This fall the building was
finished and is fully equipped with computers, puzzles, games, arts and
crafts, an air hockey table and more.
Peggy is looking at other ways of improving her business. With
the help of CEI's Women's Business Center, she is developing a web page
to advertise to prospective families and communicate with parents.
Peggy recognizes that more families are connected to the internet and
wants to take advantage of technology.
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Finance Your Business 
Maine Legislature Passes Model Anti-Predatory Lending Bill.