Suky’s Daycare
Suced Yusso, owner of Suky’s Learning Center, celebrated one year at her second location, 900 E. Nelson Avenue, with an open house. Yusso said it has long been her dream to open and run a daycare center.
CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Some of the decor at Suky’s Learning Center, created by owner Suced Yusso and her staff.
Suky’s Daycare works to foster a welcoming environment for children.
Suky’s Daycare just celebrated the first anniversary of the business’s second location in Moses Lake.
MOSES LAKE — It was 23 years ago when Suced Yusso started a daycare business in her home.
“I always had a dream to open a center,” Yusso said through a translator, Jose Ureste, Associate Pastor at the Warden Assembly. “My husband thought I was crazy, but it was a dream that I had.”
As Yusso speaks, Ureste’s four-year-old daughter Sofia sits at a table playing. It’s the end of a long day, and she’s the last child in the center.
After getting a college degree and a lot of hard work, Yusso now has two Suky’s Learning Centers — an initial location at 414 Buress Ave. and a second location she opened a year ago at 900 E. Nelson Road in the offices of a former chiropractic clinic — and managed to keep the first location going in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic while she looked at that second building and dreamed.
To keep the business going during the pandemic, Yusso said she and her husband borrowed from his 401(k) because they weren’t eligible for aid and couldn’t get a business loan.
In the midst of that, Yusso said, she and her husband managed to acquire the E. Nelson Road location and then had to get it up and running. It had been gutted and needed a lot of work to get it up and running, she said. City officials suggested it would never work as a daycare center and that maybe Yusso should look elsewhere.
“I got stubborn,” she said. “This is going to be a daycare.”
Yusso said she and her husband worked for a year and a half cleaning, painting and putting in new floors, complying with all state requirements, before coming to the city to get the needed permits.
“They were surprised,” Yusso said. “I completed my dream.”
Both Suky’s Learning Centers are clean and colorfully decorated, with Yusso saying she and her employees made all of the decorations themselves. Yusso said she is licensed to care for 35 children at the Buress Avenue location and 25 children at the E. Nelson Road operation, and prefers smaller daycare centers because she believes she can better care for children that way.
“I like the quality, not the quantity,” she said. “Somewhere I believe I can give kids the best.”
“Oh, I love it. Yeah, it's been amazing,” Ureste said. “My daughter has learned quite a bit.”
Ureste said Sofia has some attachment issues at the Buress Avenue location, but as soon as they moved her here a year ago, things improved significantly.
“I mean, it's just been amazing. I mean, yeah, she's grown so much within the year that she's been here,” he said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com. Read more of his work by downloading the Columbia Basin Herald app - available for iOS and Android devices.
Suky’s Learning Center
414 S. Burress Avenue (509) 765-3400
900 E. Nelson Road (509)707-0226
