Founded by Jeanette Perdue-Barker, the original Playmates Childcare Center opened its doors at the Kenova location in June 1985 as a private for-profit agency and has been continually licensed by the State of West Virginia to provide early care and education services since that time. Within three years, the agency expanded the original location and opened a second center in Lavalette.
In the early 1990s, agency leadership was approached by the Huntington Boys and Girls Club to open a childcare center at their facility in Guyandotte. This led to the decision to merge Playmates with the Boys and Girls Club, start a third site within their facilities, and convert the organization to a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity. The organization was under the management of the Boys and Girls Club for approximately three years.
Subsequently, Playmates leadership repurchased the Playmates name and assets, maintained the non-profit status, renamed the agency Playmates Preschools & Child Development Centers, Inc., and relocated the Huntington Center to a nearby facility on Staunton Street. The Huntington Playmates remained in that location until 2010, when it moved to the newly remodeled building on Bridge Street.
Always ahead of their time, Playmates and Ceredo Elementary School collaborated to offer the first state licensed preschool classroom located inside an elementary school during the mid-nineties. This classroom became one of the first licensed PreK classrooms and continues within the consolidated Ceredo-Kenova Elementary School.
In 1999, Playmates opened two childcare centers. One on Piedmont Road in the west end of Huntington and the other as part of a community-based service agency within the old Buffalo High School. The Buffalo Playmates operated there until 2009, when a new, state-of-the-art child development center was built adjacent to the previous location.
In 2006, Playmates opened its sixth location at 111 East Fourth Street in Ceredo. Additionally, Playmates has two licensed Pre-K programs, one at Ceredo-Kenova Elementary School and another at the Playmates Early Education Center (PEEC) on Hughes Street in Westmoreland. Through collaborative agreements with the Wayne and Cabell County Boards of Education, Playmates manages numerous pre-K classrooms throughout both counties and oversees 30 after-school programs across the region.
From its inception, Playmates has been proactive in seeking grant funding and building collaborative relationships. Since its first Service-Learning Grant in 1990, Playmates has been committed to blending funds from multiple sources to provide the highest quality and most cost-effective services to children and families in our service area. In 2001, Playmates was awarded the first of two one-million-dollar grants called ERASE Barriers I & II. These grants aimed to eliminate common barriers to quality early education services: Education, Rurality, Accessibility, Social, and Economic. The success of these projects significantly contributed to changing the culture of early care and education across the state, elevating the industry’s public perception from babysitting to professional early care and education service delivery.
Playmates received its first national accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in the late 1990s, and each child care center has maintained this accreditation since. Playmates believes that national accreditation is the first step to ensuring that the services provided are of the highest quality possible.