Gibsons daycare receives B.C. Community Achievement Award

Eve Corlett loves children and wants to help families stay here on the Coast. She works seven days a week

(By News Desk)

When the call came, Eve Corlett dismissed it. 

“This is the BC Achievement Foundation, we are pleased to announce you have been selected to achieve a Community Achievement Award,” said the voice on the line. Like “Ahoy, you’ve won a cruise,” she thought, and hung up. 

But they called again, and left a message, and when her husband Rob Corlett called back the next day, they learned Eve had, indeed, been selected for a B.C. Community Achievement Award for providing almost 40 years of exceptional daycare on the Sunshine Coast.

“I was shocked,” Eve says. “I cried, I did not expect it. I’m very happy and surprised.”

Gibsons councillor Aleria Ladwig, whose children have been looked after for years by Eve and Rob, nominated Eve for the award. “Eve has made a significant contribution to the quality of lives for hundreds of families on the Sunshine Coast,” she wrote in her application. “She provides much-needed childcare for shift workers, health care professionals, ferry commuters and ferry workers and treats these children and their families like family.”

“Hundreds of families?” Eve says, amazed. She thinks the figure is more like 150 children over 37 years.

The couple welcome seven children at any one time during the day, seven days a week — there can be more, but no more than seven at the same time — and a maximum of four between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Eve, soft-spoken and unassuming, works 24/7.

She started working as a nanny in the Philippines, followed by four years in Hongkong, but missed her two children in the Philippines and decided to apply for a job as a nanny in Canada because she would be allowed to bring them as soon as she had permanent residency. 

She was hired by Sunshine Coast resident Rob Corlett, a single father with two children, in 1982, and they married in 1985. The year before, her son had arrived in Canada, but it would be another eight years before she was reunited with her daughter Leila, who has special needs. “She’s never been a burden to the Canadian system,” Eve says. “We’ve always looked after her at home and she helps with the children.”

The daycare is not a business to Eve; she treats the children and their parents as family. Regularly, she organizes sleepovers — for free — to give parents a break. At Easter, the couple organize an Easter egg hunt on their eight-acre property, hiding 800 eggs for 28 children last year. 

Last December, with help from the parents, Eve organized a Christmas party at the Gibsons Legion for 115 people, including kids she cared for 20 years ago. Parents brought food and presents and there was dancing to live music, supplied for free. 

Every year, Eve and Rob organize a three-night Labour Day Camp Out at Porpoise Bay Park, attended by at least 15 families. It is often the only outdoor camping experience many children will have, Ladwig wrote in her application.

In summer, the Corletts take kids and their families to Emma Lee farms on Westham island for blueberry picking. And every Halloween, they rent the Catholic Church hall for a party for all the kids, including older ones. 

The children are free to roam the Gibsons property, which has several play stations.  “We always go out with them, they are never out of our sight,” Rob says. “Playing outside is very important here.” Eve goes out with them as well, regardless of the weather. “It makes them happy to be outside. We don’t encourage screen time inside at all, except when parents insist.”

Outside, the children feed and pet the neighbour’s old horse, play with Eve and Rob’s two dogs, or help the couple grow vegetables, which are then eaten. 

Local schools have recognized the importance of Eve’s daycare and call her if kids are sick and parents cannot pick them up. The daycare has also become an official school bus stop for the Langdale and Gibsons schools. 

When she has appointments in town, she takes children with her if the parents absolutely can’t take them, turning a medical appointment into an outing. If parents don’t have a vehicle, Eve picks the children up and takes them home again, without charge. And if parents have a real problem, Eve is there to help. 

She tells of a single mother who tried to find a way to earn money by going to hairdressing school in Vancouver for six months. Five days a week, she took the 6:20 ferry, returning on the last one, while Eve looked after her child without charging her.  “She now has a salon on the Coast,” Eve says. “Things like that are good to see.”

Without the support of Eve, many families would have been forced to move off the Coast, Ladwig wrote in her application.  

With all the work Eve and Rob do, they make very little money. Until 2006, when they became licensed, he milled lumber while Eve worked on the side as a seamstress, making many a grad dress. 

Eve does not complain about lack of money, but Rob is quite unhappy with the way the province funds childcare. B.C. favours for-profit and institutionalized daycare, he says. 

“Eve receives far less than a group centre for a child under 36 months. If a child stays overnight, you need two responsible adults on site. Can you imagine what that costs? No wonder there are only 11 facilities in B.C. that provide overnight care.”

The funding is based on business days, Rob explains. For instance, if a child stays 78 continuous hours because the parent has to work on the weekend, the province only pays for eight hours because only the first eight hours of every stay count. 

“If we went by the provincial model, we would make more money and we’d have more free time, but that’s not who Eve is,” he says.

They want to avoid charging parents exorbitant rates, and Rob says he is ready to throw in the towel if the funding issue is not resolved. “But it’s up to Eve.” 

Eve smiles a bit. “It’s hard to stop. I love children,” she says. “And it’s nice to give parents an opportunity to go and make a living. It makes me really happy.”