Affordable childcare near me: Learn about Child Care and More

Child Care Scholarship Program – SC Child Care Services

What is the Child Care Scholarship program?

The Child Care Scholarship program makes child care more affordable for families by making all or a portion of provider payments directly to child care providers so parents can work or attend school or training. Provider payments are received promptly, often 3–4 days after online submission, and participation unlocks access to grants and other support through ABC Quality.

The Child Care Scholarship program helps families afford child care so parents can work, go to school, or get job training.  More than 1,900 child care providers across the state are enrolled to accept scholarships.

How to Qualify

Qualifying South Carolina families may have access to child care scholarships from the South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS). The primary scholarship program at this time is known as COVID-300. 

What Families Need to Know

To qualify for a COVID-300 child care scholarship, parent(s) or guardian(s) must:

• have a child or children between birth and 12 years of age
• work at least 15 hours per week or attend school or a training program
• have a gross income below 300% of the federal poverty level; for a family of four this would be up to $112,500 annually

Other Ways to Qualify:

• Child care scholarships are available to support children ages 13 to 18 in certain circumstances: those who have disabilities, developmental delays or who are in foster care.

Ready to Apply?

Child care scholarship eligibility requirements and online applications are available in the DSS Benefits Portal.

Child Care Scholarship Applications

Have questions?

If you have child care scholarship or eligibility questions, please email [email protected] for assistance. 

Contact Information

Child Care Operations Center
Hours: Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM, Closed on State Holidays
Client Number: (800) 476-0199
Provider Number: (800) 262-4416
Complaint Line: (800) 763-2223

Mailing Address:
Child Care Scholarship Program
P.O. Box 100160
Columbia, SC 29202-3160

Affordable Daycare for Infants, Toddlers & Preschool Petaluma

Search form

Search

My name is Melissa De Freitas, I am Brazilian and I have been working with childcare, infant care, toddlers daycare and preschool age daycare children since 2007. I’m married and the mother of two beautiful children whom I love and are everything in my life. My In-Home daycare welcomes Rohnert Park, Novato, Sonoma, Roseland, Santa Rosa, San Anselmo, San Rafael, Napa Valley children for enrollment.

I’ve been a nanny to many families and everyone always call me Tia Mel which means Auntie Mel. I have my CPR and First Aid and Preventive Health, Safety Training and Nutrition Certificates, my childcare facility number is 493010159

Affordable Family Daycare Infants, Toddlers & Preschool in Petaluma

I provide Petaluma with affordable high quality in-home child care / daycare in a safe, loving family home environment in Petaluma, for children 6 months to 3 years old, your kids will feel loved, safe and secure on my Petaluma Childcare!

I think a good balance among safety, education and fun, is achieved with the right tools, at Mel’s Childcare your kids will thrive and be prepared for a bright and happy future with our Montessori based curriculum daycare, they will be properly stimulated according to their ages, both emotionally and intellectually.

I strive to provide the best in-home daycare possible at very affordable and economical rates, I understand that we all have a set child care, daycare budget to meet, you as a parent can rest assured knowing that your child is in good loving hands!  Extra services..

Rohnert Park | Novato | Sonoma | Roseland | Santa Rosa | San Anselmo | San Rafael | Napa parents are welcome!

If you missed our enrollment openings, please enter our Waiting List Now!

Best Daycare Services, Best Prices in Petaluma

Daycare Philosophy

Tia Mel’s Childcare is a warm and inviting place where children are cared for in a loving, secure & intellectually stimulating environment. We want to provide your child with a kind environment  in our daycare, one that feels just like a family home, and at the same time make your children’s daycare experience a learning and exciting daily adventure.

Take a Virtual Tour!

At our family daycare our goal is to help infants, toddlers and preschool children to learn important social, emotional and behavioral skills that prepare them for a successful and happy future, we welcome Sonoma area parents to come meet us in Petaluma so we can Play, Learn and Grow Together!

Our Program

Infants Daycare

Toddlers Daycare

Enroll Now!

Achatina snails: my experience | Olyadka’s blog

Few people know (because it was not particularly spread) that two Achatina snails lived in my house for almost three years. This is an African species, the largest land snails. They are used in cosmetology (they say that a good peeling is to let them crawl on the face, but I wouldn’t) and they are simply kept as unpretentious pets (they don’t smell, they don’t make noise, they don’t make sounds, they don’t require much care).

How did I come to such a life decided to start them? In general, there are a lot of street snails in Lublin, because the environment is good, there is a lot of greenery. After the rain come out in tons. And about four years ago, my child and I picked one up and brought it home. First, just observe. She happily ate fruits and vegetables and did not even try to escape, she lived in an open basin. We got carried away, began to bring more snails from the street. It was especially interesting to find tiny, smaller nails on the little finger, they grew in just a couple of weeks.

After a while, my snails began to hibernate. This is when they dig into the ground, completely hide in the house, overgrow the sink and do not move. This happens if the snail does not like the living conditions, or it’s time for hibernation. In general, street (natural) snails are recommended to hibernate. It all seemed too complicated to me, so I let them out into the street and decided to start an Achatina.

I didn’t find them for sale in our city, but I found them with postage. Yes, yes, they are so unpretentious that they can tolerate the transfer for a couple of days. They cost a penny (because they breed like crazy and rather the problem is where to put them). I bought one snail, and they sent me five by mistake. I don’t know if it’s by mistake. Maybe they didn’t know where to go. I gave three more for nothing (also by mail, by the way), I decided to keep two for myself.

At first they were small. For Achatina they are small, compared to street snails they are huge.

They grow to a shell length of 20-30 cm, depending on the subspecies. They say they grow up to a year. Here, mine is about 1.5 years old, stretched out over the whole palm.

Easy care. What they need:

• A plastic box with a lid, there are a few holes in the lid (you can drill it with a drill or pierce it with a knife). Many people use glass aquariums, it is more convenient for them to wash the walls and through them you can see the snails.
• At the bottom of the box, a few centimeters of soil. You can use sand, you can use moss, but special coconut fiber is easier and more convenient, sold in pet stores, and is inexpensive. It is produced in the form of pressed bars – you fill it with water and you’re done. The soil should be moist, but not wet.

Someone adds houses, driftwood, plants to make it look better.

• Spray the inside of the box once a day with a spray bottle: snails love moisture.
• Snails also like warmth, in winter it is better to keep the box near the battery. Some breeders use heating mats.
• The sun’s rays do not like (up to a sad outcome), so let the box always be in the shade.
• Nutrition: eat any vegetables, any greens, fruits. They love porridge, cereals. They also love fish food – gammarus. You can give little by little and check what their soul is better for. Just keep in mind – snails can not be salty. In general, they eat very little, so there is no cost for feeding. At least give cleaning from vegetables – waste-free production!

• Calcium must be given to snails, it is necessary for building and maintaining the shell. You can buy in pet stores the so-called sepia – the backbone of the sea cuttlefish or something like that. They are for birds (with mount on the cage), there are the same for terrariums (without mount). As an alternative, you can give the snails ordinary chalk (no additives!), ground eggshells, cottage cheese.

• Cleaning the box is also simple: once a couple of weeks it is worth wiping the lid and walls from mucus, once every couple of months completely change the soil to fresh, while washing the box.
• Keep in mind that snails leave excrement daily (just “chewed” food, no bad odors), they just need to be collected from the surface once every couple of days.

What else should I keep in mind? Some people say that snails love water. Like, you need to bathe them regularly. Under water, they really wake up, take out their heads and shake their necks, but I read on the net that this is from fear – they are looking for a way out. In general, the humid environment in the box – yes, swimming – is not worth it, all the more, by negligence, the snail can be dropped on a hard surface.

And snails are actively breeding. The “program” of the species is such, after all, many of them die. All snails are hermaphrodites, that is, it doesn’t matter who is a “boy” and who is a “girl”. Moreover, if the snail lives alone, it can even fertilize itself. And if there are two, then the chance of having offspring is even higher somewhere after the snails are one year old. They lay eggs at once and a lot. Breeders recommend getting rid of them humanely before the appearance of hundreds of microsnails – just get the eggs and freeze in the freezer, and then throw them away, or grind them and give them to the snails as a calcium supplement. Harsh, but what can you do. My snails, by the way, have never laid eggs. I don’t know why, but it’s for the best.

One of my snails lived for two years, died during my departure because my husband unknowingly exposed it to the sun. The second one held on for a few more months, but then it also gradually stopped eating, moving, lost a lot of weight and size and flew away to snail paradise (anticipating questions – no, it didn’t hibernate, there are ways to check this, and I checked). To be honest, I breathed a sigh of relief.

A snail is definitely not a dog, not a cat or even a hamster. And not even fish, the aquarium at least has an aesthetic function. Many people generally cringe at the sight of huge Achatina, they are disgusted to look at them. Something slimy is crawling up your arm – “communication with a pet” is not for everyone.

Even if you don’t have any squeamishness towards snails, I will say that they are extremely boring domestic “animals”. During the day they sleep, hanging on the lid of the box, closer to 23 hours they wake up and crawl, eat. That is, you actually do not see their activity. Zero communication and feedback. Just clean and wash the terrarium regularly.

In general, according to the descriptions, they live up to 6 years, so it’s worth starting an Achatina after thinking carefully. After all, just throwing it out into the street if you get bored is not an option, in our climate it cannot survive. And it is, after all, a living being. And you are responsible for those who have tamed :).

P.S. They asked me about seals, they were not interested in snails at all – too slow creatures. Even if you put it under your nose, they could only sniff it, then they ignored it.

UPDATE:

Some time ago Maxim wrote to me and shared his view on keeping such snails at home, which is somewhat different from mine. Maxim allowed me to add his thoughts to my post, so read and think:

At the beginning it was the same situation. And it really became boring, and it is impossible not to agree with you. You change food, you clean, you hardly see what they are doing there. But my inquisitive mind turned everything upside down. To begin with, I wondered: why do snails sleep on walls and ceilings? And he reasoned logically: no matter what kind of animal it is, the force of gravity still acts on it and in any case it will take much more strength than sitting on the ground. And after I read on the Internet and saw that Achatinas fall from the roofs and hit their shells … Many people, even veterinarians, say that this is normal behavior of snails. And it’s okay for them to crawl up the walls. But observations have shown that they climb only for certain reasons. Perhaps this is not all the reasons, but what we managed to find out. And so, because of what snails can climb walls and ceilings:

1. The very first thing that snails can climb walls and the first thing that was noticed was the eggs. From what and why they do it, science is not known for sure. And to be more precise, science is not at all aware of the behavior of snails. But the fact that it is precisely when the eggs are born that the snail can crawl along the walls. And moreover, they do it in a special way and along a certain trajectory.
2. Due to moisture. Lack or excess of moisture on the ground and in the air. There is almost nothing to explain here. Here it must be said that the lack of humidity is the very first reason.
3. Exploration of the territory.
4. Stress.

Regarding the last two points, the following should be explained. The second snail settling into the terrarium, like the first one, first of all began to explore the territory. She climbed up the wall and up to the ceiling. Where I spent most of the time, on the first day. It should be noted here. Snails, when settling into a new territory, always begin to explore the territory from the ceiling. When settling into the same terrarium, the first one spent a lot of time on the ceiling. It became obvious that if the snail is strongly disturbed when cleaning the terrarium, the next action after that is to climb the ceiling. It can be logically concluded that a snail at a height feels safer than on the ground.

In nature, a snail crawls onto some plant and hangs like on a ceiling, hiding under a leaf or branch. From which one more conclusion can be drawn that when a snail enters a new territory, it hides from potential predators and enemies, and when it is convinced of its safety, it can descend to the ground or soil. Next, she conducts a study of the earth or the surface of the soil. Exploring the territory, the snail leaves a trail. It turned out when they stopped changing the soil and digging. But at the same time, it is more thorough to clean, it is noticed that they have stopped crawling on the walls and ceilings. It became an obvious fact that this is like an overgrown path in a field for a person. Similarly, for a snail, a lost track evokes a danger reaction, as in unfamiliar territory. If the snail is on eggs or for some reason spends a lot of time on the ceiling or walls, if it is tired, it will descend to the ground, but only under normal conditions.

In fact, the time they don’t eat is almost always sleeping. If the snail is mainly awake, these are two things that it can be busy with: The first is searching for food. It has been observed that if the food you offer is not to your liking, it may even crawl up the walls and lid to find an alternative. And the second is self-care. Yes, the snail, feeling safe and in good conditions, takes care of itself. Bathing is a big question why a snail climbs into the water. And she climbs there, definitely not for hygiene. Most likely to drink.

People stereotype animals and think that if a cat or dog is not washed in the shower or bath, it is dirty. Forgetting that this is a wild animal, and they have their own “hygiene”, their own rules and regulations. What to say about snails. Yes, snails, in quotation marks, like cats, lick themselves, but again, I repeat and emphasize that this is only under good conditions. For more than a year, the snail has not bathed under running water from the tap, and does not leave the terrarium at all. And at the same time the body remains always clean. And even the edges of the shell, the maximum where the snail can reach, are also kept clean by the snail itself. The question is whether the second snail can help with this. It was observed that allegedly yes, and there were such encroachments, but this is not certain. But there is another activity that a snail can do every month. This is the laying of eggs and all the preparatory processes that are associated with this.

From the very beginning of the appearance of the snail, it was noticed that before laying, the snail began not only to dig the soil in different places of the terrarium. But it can also stop eating from one to three days. Why it was necessary not to eat and why dig the soil and put it in the pit. Mystery. Until the age of four, the snail did just that. She laid her eggs in a dug hole, and after laying, she could not eat anything for up to three days, but only sleep. I would like to note sleep, because the snail does not go into a curl, does not burrow, but lies on the surface of the ground. But, in the fourth year of life, there were changes. The snail stopped digging holes. She laid her eggs directly on the surface of the soil. Based on the behavior of the second snail, over time it became clear that this snail got used to this territory and felt safe.

In the same terrarium, about three weeks before, the temperature was lowered to twenty-six plus or minus half a degree (on the thermostat). Maybe the temperature affected, maybe it’s age-related changes you can’t say for sure. The fact that the temperature exactly affects the snails is not all the same. Twenty-seven degrees or twenty-six, I can say for sure. The heater heats best in the middle, and it is very difficult to achieve uniform heating. It has been observed that snails sleep mainly on the edges of the terrarium. Having measured the temperature in the center and on the edge, it turns out that there is not a small difference, which reached two degrees. And after the change in temperature, the snails began to sleep closer to the center.

Next came the nightmare of any snail breeder on YouTube and on the Internet. A bubble suddenly popped out of the snail’s mouth. I read a lot of articles on the Internet, but in fact everyone is dragging the same thing from each other. On YouTube, they talk about this and show essentially the same thing as on the Internet. But I have not found any scientific basis or confirmation. Who said that chamomile is useful, where it was said that potassium permanganate works exactly the way snails need it, not to mention piercing this bubble. Not having the slightest idea what it is, why, why and many more questions. I concluded that it is better not to climb, and leave the snail alone. According to the principle, when asked how to help, you often hear the answer: Do not interfere!

I did not touch it, I left it in the same conditions as in my terrarium, with another snail. And he tried not to even touch her, so as not to disturb her. For about three days the snail sat, slept, sometimes crawled with this bubble. I noticed that another snail was nearby (although there had never been such closeness before). And my surprise was great when, on the fourth day, I saw this snail without a bubble, and a considerable pile of eggs lay nearby.

Also trying not to disturb, I left with the eggs. And the snail lay for another three days, almost without moving. Then I started to eat, and everything fell into place. Further, when the second snail got out the same bubble, an egg was noticed in the bubble. Apart from the liquid, the egg is inside the bubble. That is, this is the fertilization of eggs. It is for this reason that the snail does not eat before laying, since it has nothing to eat, and in fact there is no time, since there are a considerable number of eggs, and it takes a lot of time and effort.

There is only one conclusion, you need to watch the animal and try to understand it, then it will be very interesting. To better observe, I bought a camera that shoots time-lapse. Here is one of the video examples:

And there was another interesting fact. When I cleaned the snails and changed the soil, one snail climbed to the top and crawled to the exit of the terrarium.