Program replaces van for day care owner

LaKaisha McCaleb helps children into her new van Tuesday at her day care, Joy and Gladness Children's Academy. The van was donated through the program Working Wheels 4 Working Families.
LaKaisha McCaleb helps children into her new van Tuesday at her day care, Joy and Gladness Children's Academy. The van was donated through the program Working Wheels 4 Working Families.

LaKaisha McCaleb has a van, again.

Thanks to the Working Wheels 4 Working Families program, McCaleb, 33, now has a 2005 Dodge Caravan she can call her own - less than a month after her 2008 Chevy Uplander stopped working.

"It put a real strain on everything," McCaleb told the News Tribune. "I also use my vehicle to pick up and drop off some of the day care kids."

McCaleb and her mother own and operate the Joy and Gladness Children's Academy, 511 E. McCarty St. - Jefferson City's only 24-hour day care program, which will celebrate its first anniversary next month.

However, McCaleb lives near Big Horn Drive, west of Jefferson City's western limits.

"It was hard for me to perform everyday tasks" from that location without a vehicle, she said. "A lot of people depend on me and rely on me."

A WW4WF news release noted McCaleb's vision was to offer day care services in the evening to help those parents who work night shifts or go to school at night.

"LaKaisha is an impressive young woman," Lorie Smith, WW4WF's executive director, said in the release. "She has been through some tough times, pulled through and is now in a position to help other families in her community who may be fighting similar challenges.

"Her day care is filling a huge need in the Jefferson City area, and I'm so happy we could help her out in her time of need."

McCaleb said the Working Wheels program "moved kind of quick," after first telling her it could take more than a month to find her a replacement vehicle.

She got the new van Saturday.

Smith said in the news release the van was a "Valentine's present" to McCaleb, and it had been donated.

"Kwik Kar employees spent many hours cleaning and getting the car ready to present," Smith said. "It takes many people working together to make this possible."

McCaleb reported the agency "already knew I was having problems with my (old) van. But my van was still running, and I felt like I could (fix) some of the things I needed to get fixed and let somebody else that didn't have a vehicle get a vehicle."

McCaleb said she made a number of repairs on her old van, until it couldn't be repaired any longer.

She said the new-to-her van "seems like it was just meant for me. I'm able to get around and do some of the things that I do.

"I'm able now to now pick up some of the children I pick up after school."

McCaleb is divorced, and in addition to her work at the day care, she's a mom to two daughters, ages 11 and 3.

The younger daughter has chronic asthma - and the new van will help McCaleb get to the needed doctors' appointments and medical treatments.

"I am just so grateful they came up with this program," McCaleb said. "It was just such a blessing. I didn't have the money - I didn't have the income to go out and buy a new van. Now I'm able to get around, not just in my personal life, but helping others."

She applauds those who started Working Wheels 4 Working Families and encouraged people who are replacing a vehicle to donate the older one to WW4WF.

The agency noted in its release it "reconditions donated vehicles and awards them to pre-qualified, low-income working families in the Mid-Missouri area. Vehicle donors can also get a tax deduction."

WW4WF accepts vehicles that are running and those that are not, because it can salvage parts from vehicles it can't recondition. The organization also accepts cash donations, which also are tax deductible.

Since it began in 2013, the release said, WW4WF has assisted 24 families in need.

More information about the program is available at www.ww4wf.com or by email at [email protected].