Marvin Methodist Church surprises Tyler Day Nursery with $3,500 donation

Published 3:45 pm Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Saint Nick stopped by Tyler Day Nursery to greet the boys and girls Tuesday morning — but he wasn’t the biggest surprise of the day. Mary Gammell of Marvin Methodist Church presented the nonprofit’s executive director, Jaquita Lee, with a donation of $3,500.

“I was not expecting this at all,” Lee said. “The only thing I was expecting was Miss Mary’s beautiful face and Santa greeting the children. That’s all I was expecting today.”

Two months ago, Gammell contacted Lee about bringing Santa by the Tyler Day Nursery for a visit.

“We went by each classroom with Santa, singing carols and bringing the children to the best of our ability. Some were… more willing than others but we got them to our gym for photos and for Santa to hand out candy canes.”

“The Marvin Methodist Church supports Tyler Santa on a Mission and Santa has been on this mission for 23 years providing monetary help to St. Paul’s Children’s clinic and others in need,” Gammell said.

Founded by the Tyler Council of Church Women in 1936, Tyler Day Nursery has serviced the community for 88 years as the oldest known licensed, nonprofit child care center for low-income families in the state of Texas.

“(The council) is actually still operating today, they meet four times a year and they are actually donors of ours,” Lee said.

The purpose is to care for the children of low-income and poverty level families who need quality childcare and preschool education during the time the parent or parents are at work or in school. They serve as young as 6 weeks old all the way up to 5 years old. The daycare currently has 82 children and 15 people on staff.

“Jaquita has done such an outstanding job here at the Tyler Day Nursery,” Gammell said. “You can really see here how happy the children are. And they’re so respectful, too.”

With it being the end of the year, Lee is glad to have the donations.

“We’re at the end of our budget so we’re trying to figure out how to get through the rest of the year and we’re going to begin the next year so… this will be very helpful for us,” she said.

Gammell originally had $2,500 planned from the church to donate but was given a last-minute surprise on Friday by the Byers Family Foundation.

“A (representative from the foundation) had lunch with us and kind of quizzed me on what we do and we told him about our Santa on a Mission program,” she said. “I told him about Tyler Day Nursery and how their funds had been cut and I wish I could figure out how to get them the money they need because they’re such a wonderful cause. He said to ‘come by my office on Monday, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.’”

Byers Family Foundation was established in February 2023 by longtime community banker and entrepreneur Lewie Byers and his wife Elaine Byers.

“I am overwhelmed by the generosity of people when they hear about his place and what it means to the citizens of Tyler,” Gammell said. “It is a very special place.”

Lee said they’re also trying to expand with additional classrooms, relocating the kitchen for something larger and more functional, as well as a small library and a computer lab.

“The community has been very supportive of us,” Lee added. “We try to make sure we keep doing what we’re supposed to be doing… and we appreciate everything they do to help us out because if it wasn’t for the community, we’d probably be struggling more than we have. So, we thank y’all.”

To find out more about how you can support Tyler Day Nursery, visittylerdaynursery.org.