A New Chapter
for Childcare on
San Juan Island
Growing access. Honoring legacy. Building a stronger future for San Juan families.
Hope Harbor is Growing…
Learn more about our current expansion project to increase access to high-quality childcare on San Juan Island.
In response to the continued shortage of accessible, high-quality, full-time childcare on San Juan Island, Hope Harbor is opening a second location in the former Alphabet Soup facility in Friday Harbor.
This transition represents an opportunity to do something we believe our community needs deeply: preserve a beloved local childcare space while investing in its future.
Alphabet Soup has been part of the lives of San Juan Island families for years. We are grateful for the care, relationships, and memories created there, and we intend to honor that history as we begin this next chapter.
Our goal is not to replace what made Alphabet Soup special, but rather to build on that foundation; maintaining its childcare license, welcoming its community, and bringing the high standards, resources, and infrastructure of Hope Harbor to a second location so that more San Juan families can access exceptional early learning and dependable full-time care.
Our Goal for Expansion
To reduce equity gaps and improve access to high-quality childcare for all families on San Juan Island, with a particular focus on families and children who have been systematically underserved by the island’s current early childhood ecosystem.
Accessibility
To increase equitable access to high-quality childcare for families on San Juan Island, with a focus on reducing barriers related to cost, schedule, and specialized support needs.
Community Outreach
To increase community awareness, family engagement, and coordination among service providers to connect families with available resources and support systems.
Sustainability
To strengthen the long-term sustainability and stability of our infrastructure to ensure consistent, high-quality services for future generations.
What We Mean by “High-Quality Childcare”
For us, high-quality childcare is more than a beautiful classroom or a particular educational philosophy. It means children are known. It means families are respected. It means educators are supported. It means developmental concerns are identified early. It means children with disabilities and developmental differences are not treated as problems to be solved or reasons for exclusion. It means families can go to work knowing their children are safe, engaged, learning, and cared for. And it means a childcare program is reliable enough to be part of the community's infrastructure, not something families have to piece together week by week.
Our vision is childcare that works in real life.
San Juan Island's childcare challenge is often described as a shortage of childcare, but the more pressing issue is a shortage of high-quality, full-time early learning infrastructure that enables families to work while ensuring children receive developmentally appropriate education and support.
Hope Harbor is currently the only program on San Juan Island offering licensed, accessible, inclusive, full-time, year-round childcare designed to meet the needs of working families.
This distinction matters. Part-time preschool and enrichment programs serve an important role, but they cannot replace the reliable, full-day care that allows parents to maintain full-time employment. As a result, many families face an impossible choice between earning a living and accessing quality early childhood education for their children. The burden falls most heavily on essential workers such as healthcare employees, teachers, hospitality staff, construction workers, farmers, and first responders, whose jobs cannot be performed remotely or around limited preschool schedules.
The need for affordable, high-quality childcare is reflected in the families we currently serve. 91% of Hope Harbor's enrolled families use state childcare subsidies and scholarships, demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of our families would not have access to reliable care without the public assistance we provide.
Even with these subsidies, affordability remains a significant barrier. In the past 11 months alone, Hope Harbor has provided more than $200,000 in discounted tuition, extended care, and meal services to ensure children are not denied access due to their families' financial circumstances.
This project addresses this unmet need by strengthening the island's only high-quality, full-time early learning program while expanding access to experiences that have historically been unavailable to local children.
Hope Harbor is the only early learning program on San Juan Island that has earned accreditation from ECEAP, Child Care Aware, and Early Achievers, ensuring that children, including those from low-income families and those with developmental or behavioral needs, receive evidence-based, trauma-informed, year-round, high-quality care that prepares them for long-term success.
Preserving What Families Love.
Building What Families Need.
The new Hope Harbor location will continue operating in the existing Alphabet Soup facility, retaining its Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) childcare license for children ages 12 months through 7 years.
We believe that continuity matters. Introducing… Hope Harbor at the Soup.
This is not about erasing the history of a small, beloved childcare business. It is about ensuring that the space, relationships, and childcare infrastructure it created can continue serving San Juan Island families for years to come.
As we transition the program, we will thoughtfully preserve what works while making investments that allow the program to better meet the realities of today's families.
Growing
Together:
What This Transition Means for Families
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We recognize that a name can hold a lot of memories for families. While we are excited to open our second Hope Harbor program, we want to honor the history and relationships that came before us.
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Now open Monday-Friday!
We believe that reliable full-time care is a cornerstone of accessible childcare and high-quality early learning, providing children with consistency and continuity while giving families the dependable support they need to work, plan, and thrive.
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We will be open 7:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m., providing a schedule that reflects the realities of island families.
We are excited to introduce our Breakfast and Supper Club programs that provide drop-in care from 7:30-9:00 in the morning and from 4:00-5:30 in the evening!
We know how unpredictable island life and work schedules can be, and we’re here to offer flexible, local support that works for your family.
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We believe every child, regardless of their family’s ability to pay, deserves access to high-quality early learning.
One of the biggest changes in this transition is our commitment to making care more financially accessible.
We are pursuing the accreditations and partnerships necessary to accept Working Connections Child Care (WCCC), opening the door to high-quality early learning for more San Juan Island families.
To learn more or see if your family is eligible for free or low-cost childcare:
Washington State Working Connections Child Care -
The program will benefit from Hope Harbor's educational practices, professional systems, trauma-informed baseline, community partnerships, and commitment to developmentally appropriate, inclusive early learning for children of all abilities and backgrounds.
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We have high expectations for our educators because we know this work is hard, skilled, and deeply important.
Educators will receive increased compensation, professional development, training, and support as they grow into what it means to be a Hope Harbor educator.
We are committed to investing in our teachers while holding ourselves to a high standard of care, professionalism, and continuous growth.
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We will bring along our strong advocacy and practices that support children with developmental, behavioral, sensory, and other individualized and complex needs. We believe childhood is for everyone.
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We are thoughtfully updating classrooms and materials to create warm, intentional learning environments that support children’s independence, creativity, relationships, and learning.
Learn more about our Reggio Emilia-inspired pedagogy and our investment in intentional learning environments: Our Pedagogy & Learning Environments
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Learn more about Our Village and the community partnerships that help us support children and families beyond the classroom.
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We are expanding the program’s food and nutrition offerings so that children have consistent access to nourishing food throughout the day.
Hope Harbor provides two daily snacks and a full lunch, with snacks designed to include balanced servings of protein, carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables and prepared in accordance with USDA and DCYF guidelines.
For families using our before- and after-care programs, we also provide breakfast and a supper-inspired snack to help ensure children are nourished from the beginning to the end of their day.
We believe food is an essential part of childcare. Children learn, play, regulate, and grow best when their nutritional needs are consistently supported. All snacks and meals are part of our all-inclusive tuition rates!
What does Accessibility look like?
Since opening our doors in August 2025, Hope Harbor has seen firsthand just how significant the need for childcare is on San Juan Island.
We have been actively pursuing ways to expand access to subsidy-accepting, full-time childcare in Friday Harbor through grant applications, facility expansion projects, and community partnerships.
We have been working toward this goal since the day we opened. When the opportunity to continue the legacy of Alphabet Soup became available, we knew we could not pass it up.
Rather than waiting years for a new facility to become available or to build from the ground up, Hope Harbor is growing into an existing, licensed childcare space and investing in making it stronger, more accessible, and more sustainable for the families who depend on it.
This is expansion with a purpose: more children served, more families supported, and more high-quality childcare infrastructure for our island.
What does Sustainability look like?
Beyond serving individual children, this project strengthens the community as a whole. Reliable childcare is essential infrastructure that supports workforce participation, economic stability, and community resilience. When families can depend on consistent, high-quality care, parents are better able to remain employed, employers experience greater workforce stability, and children receive the early interventions that reduce the need for more intensive educational, healthcare, and social services later in life.
Our approach is intentionally collaborative and sustainable. We partner with local schools, healthcare providers, behavioral health specialists, early intervention programs, universities, and community organizations to ensure children and families receive coordinated support rather than isolated services. By investing in a model that combines full-time care, educational excellence, family support, and community partnerships, this project addresses an urgent gap that no other organization on San Juan Island currently fills.
This work directly advances Hope Harbor's mission to provide exceptional early childhood education while strengthening the long-term health, resilience, and economic vitality of our island community.
Rather than duplicating existing services that are only accessible for a wealthy subset of our population, this project invests in the critical childcare infrastructure that allows children, families, businesses, and the broader community to thrive.
Growing Up & Aging Down: Accessing Toddler Care
One of the most important opportunities created by this expansion is the ability to serve children under 30 months old.
Our current location, Hope Harbor at St. David’s, is not licensed for toddlers. As a result, many families with children in this age group have no options for full-time, high-quality, subsidized childcare.
Our new location, Hope Harbor at the Soup, will allow us to serve children beginning at 12 months old.
That means a parent shouldn't have to choose between returning to work and finding a safe, nurturing place for their toddler. And it means our community can begin building childcare infrastructure that serves families from toddlerhood through the transition to kindergarten and beyond.
Together, our two locations will increase the number of licensed subsidized year-round childcare spaces available on the island from 26 to more than 58, while adding something our current program cannot: care for children as young as 12 months.
Our Commitment to Educators
Quality childcare begins with quality educators.
Early childhood educators do some of the most important work in our community, yet the profession has historically been undervalued and underpaid.
Hope Harbor believes that changing childcare requires changing the conditions in which educators work.
At Hope Harbor at the Soup, we are committed to bringing educator compensation into alignment with Hope Harbor's existing standards; we are committed to raising educator starting pay by 30% on the first day with a pathway toward higher wages as educators complete professional development, certifications, and specialized training.
We want educators to be able to build careers here.
When educators can stay, children benefit from the consistency, relationships, and expertise that make excellent early learning possible.
This Is a Community Project
This expansion is made possible by people and organizations who believe that childcare is essential community infrastructure. Hope Harbor is fundraising for this project through the San Juan Island Community Foundation, alongside support from local donors and institutions. The generosity of our community is helping make it possible to take an existing childcare facility and invest in its next chapter rather than starting from scratch.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who has chosen to invest in this work.
When we invest in childcare, we invest in children, parents, educators, employers, and the future of San Juan Island.
A New Chapter,
Built With Care
Questions? We Want to Hear From You.
We understand that a transition like this may bring questions, and we welcome them.
If you are a current or former Alphabet Soup family, a Hope Harbor family, a community member, an educator, or simply someone who wants to understand more about this project, please reach out.
We are happy to talk about the transition, our plans for the new location, licensing, programming, enrollment, or our vision for expanding childcare access on San Juan Island.
This project is for our community, and we believe our community deserves to understand it.
A Note of Gratitude
To the families who have trusted Alphabet Soup with their children: thank you.
To the educators who have cared for generations of San Juan Island children: thank you.
And to the community members who believe that every family deserves access to dependable, high-quality childcare: thank you for helping us build what comes next.
We are honored to carry this work forward.