MILWAUKEE — At 2:15 p.m. Monday, Yolanda Gates woke up the children she and her husband care for at their home day care business. 

What You Need To Know

  • Milwaukee Public Schools have been in virtual learning since the start of 2022 due to the omicron variant 
  • Day cares are seeing an increase of children, who have no where else to go, as their parents/guardians continue to work
  • It’s putting an added stress on child care providers, as it increases the number of children they’re caring for at once

It’s a normal routine they’ve been doing for more than 20 years, but now, that routine includes handing out fresh masks. 

“We have masks in the morning, and then we try to re-mask in the afternoon part of they day because they get the masks so gross,” Gates said. 

It’s a precaution they brought back as the omicron variant surges, to keep the kids and her family safe. 

“I have a lung disease, [I’m a] breast cancer survivor, and a heart attack [survivor], so there are reasons for me being extra cautious,” Gates said.

With more precautions because of omicron, the Gates are taking care of more children at one time. 

Instead of just taking care of school aged kids before and after school, they’re taking care of them all day, as Milwaukee Public Schools and other districts have gone back to virtual learning for the time being. 

“Now I have an overflow of children,” Gates said. "My children that are normally in school during the day are now with us.”

She has to be careful - not only because of the spread of the coronavirus - but because she can only care for so many kids at one time, by law.

“We work with that as well as we can,” Gates said. 

That’s been the motto for the last two years. 

Gates’ husband, Espernolia, said he’s used to sanitizing everything regularly, even before the pandemic, but is even more on top of the duties now. 

“They touch everything, hand to mouth, hand to mouth, so we just got to keep it clean,” Espernolia Gates said. 

Yolanda Gates said it’s been difficult emotionally over the last two years, and there’s been a lot of uncertainties about health, safety, and even funding. 

But she and her husband are looking to expand so they can take care of more kids, and not have to turn them away and leave families they care about in a pinch. 

“So, even though we’re in the middle of a pandemic, we’re still anxious and ambitious enough to go ahead and find a bigger facility,” Gates said, adding nothing can dampen her passion for child care, even in challenging times.