Killeen: Despite closing his doors, local daycare owner takes care of families and employees

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) - The COVID pandemic continues to make its rounds as X-Pressions Learning Center in Killeen closed its doors Friday. However, that didn’t stop its owner from making sure all of the children had a new daycare to go to afterwards.

Tarren Hunter is one of dozens of parents heartbroken to see the daycare close.

“I was kind of devastated,” she said.

“This is the third daycare that’s closing on us because of COVID and the pandemic. It’s definitely hard for them to keep up the staff here. My kids love it here, though. It’s like a family here.”

Owner Anthony Vaughters says they’re shutting down due to finances and COVID.

“COVID has really impacted our business financially, emotionally,” he said.

“This impacted our business with a lot of different areas where we fought and fought really hard for the last two and a half years.”

However, that fight hasn’t stopped even with his business closing its doors.

“For every child that’s in this center right now, I personally went to multiple day care centers all month of January and February and assured them space available in those facilities.”

Hunter says he kept his word.

“I’ve been panicking while trying to figure out how I was gonna continue working if I didn’t have childcare, but he made sure otherwise,” she said.

“He said, ‘Hey ma, have you found another spot yet. I want you to come see this place because I know these guys over here.’ He made sure my girls got to stay together at the same daycare.”

Vaughters also made sure that all his employees had new jobs lined up as they closed. While it feels bittersweet to close his business after 14 years of memories, he’s happy to help the next generation any way he can.

“The whole celebration is that we’ve done our job from day one all the way to the end,” he said.

“Our whole celebration is that we represented the community, the church of deliverance and God well. When you do things at a standard of excellence on a daily basis, things kind of work together for you.”

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