This year BCNC is proud to celebrate its 40th anniversary. This year, we have shared Spotlight Stories sponsored by State Street, stories about people from the BCNC family and how BCNC has impacted their lives.

January’s Spotlight Story features: Amy Ma – “Being able to have my own childcare program has allowed me to support my family.”

Since immigrating to the U.S. over twenty years ago, Amy Ma has been involved at BCNC in a variety of ways. When Amy first moved to Boston, she went to BCNC to learn English. After finishing her courses, she and her husband opened a restaurant together. She remembers how meeting with the fire department, the building inspector, and communicating with customers were all challenging adjustments. Fortunately she was well-equipped: “All of the English I used was from BCNC,” said Amy, “so they helped me a lot.”

However five years and two children later, Amy decided “owning a restaurant was not a good life for us. I didn’t have the time to take care of my sons. So I started thinking about childcare.”

Amy enrolled in the Early Childcare Program at Urban College and opened her own daycare. Amy knew that she needed more outside support in order to have a successful program. She got connected with the childcare director of BCNC, and signed up to be a part of BCNC’s Family Child Care program. Through BCNC, she receives monthly trainings and her daycare receives subsides from a statewide program that helps low-income families access childcare.

It has been six years since she teamed up with BCNC and she has seen dozens of children graduate from her daycare. With the help of BCNC, she has taken various workshops to design lesson plans, observe child behavior, and manage a multilingual classroom. She uses Cantonese, Mandarin, Toisanese, and English throughout the day to accommodate the children’s native languages. For Amy, the best part of her job is the energy she gets from the children. She exclaimed, “For me, working with children makes me feel young!”

One of the most positive effects of owning the daycare has been the influence on her own children. “Since I opened the family childcare I have been able to help my sons a lot. I am the role model for them.” They have learned how to take care of children, and have gotten childcare positions because of their experience at their mother’s daycare. Her two sons also became active members of the BCNC swim team, the whole family is involved at BCNC! Now that her daycare is well-established, Amy is working towards an associate degree from Urban College. She looks forward to furthering her education and keeping herself and her family involved with BCNC. “BCNC has helped me get to where I am today, and in the future, I hope to see my sons give back and volunteer at BCNC!”