Daycare thank you suggestions

[tennisgal]

DD will be starting kindergarten in 2 weeks and thus we will be done with our day care center.  Trying to come up with a thank you gift for them to bring as they likely won't be back there ever.  

- DD will have been there almost 2 years.  We started her there quickly when our old center gave us 1 weeks notice that they were closing.  We had been at the previous daycare for 6 years.  They welcomed her there with open arms and made the transition from her old daycare (where she had been since 3 month old) go very smoothly.

- DS started there March 2020 with the initial school lockdown.  He could have gone to the school daycare (H and I are both essential workers) but that was a giant clusterf*ck, so they accepted him at the daycare center where he had never attended.   They facilitated distance learning for the end of the 2020 school year for him and he also ended up doing last school year all online while going to the center, with them facilitating distance learning again for the year.  

It is a small center with 6 or 7 staff members that seem to rotate between rooms + the director who also does some teaching as well.  

In pre-covid times, I would stop and get bagles/coffee or donuts/juice a couple times year, but not sure if people really want to be sharing food now?  When DS left the last center to start Kinder, he picked out a vase for each of his 3 teachers and we got them flowers.  

I'm just not sure what to get.   For Christmas, we got them each Target gift cards and some Burts Bees chapstick/lotion.

[ssmjlm]

Gift cards

[goldengirlz]

Money is always the answer

[purplepenguin7]

I agree with gift cards absolutely, but if you want to provide some food type thing I’ve seen a lot of baskets with individual packaged snacks teachers and staff can grab throughout the day. Stuff like granola bars, bags of chips/popcorn,/pretzels, peanut butter or cheese crackers, even fruit like bananas and oranges, maybe even apples.

[sdlaura]

Cash, a handmade thank you note from my kid, and a handwritten thank you note from me

[steamboat185]

We recently left our daycare after almost 8 years (our youngest started kindergarten) We bought lunch (a Qdoba hot lunch bar) for everyone (roughly 20 people) and then gave the teachers we knew DD spent most of her time with 50 in cash. We cleared lunch with the director prior to ordering to make sure it was allowed. The staff LOVED it and we felt like it was a good way to make sure we thanked all the staff we had been with over the years, but whose classroom we weren’t currently in and give a special thanks to those that we see everyday. It might be a bit overkill for you, but the total cost was less than we had been paying weekly for daycare when our 2nd kid was an infant and they have put up with a bunch the last 18 months.

[UMaineTeach]

Gift cards for a local lunch place and donate a book to the center.

[konapoppy]

I’ve done gift cards and catered lunches. You really can never go wrong with a gift card.