
Owner Kim Aldinger poses in front of Busy Bees Child Development Center.
By LYDIA PLAHN/for The Herald — Kim Aldinger is living her dream in a remodeled building on East Main Street in Lowell that houses the Busy Bees Development Center.
The center opened April 17th, and is now almost four months into its journey to fill the childcare void in Lowell. Getting to this point was not easy. Aldinger faced a variety of challenges and setbacks before opening the daycare’s doors.
Aldinger has a strong background in childcare with a degree in early childhood education, experience owning a daycare in Idaho and rearing three children.
Lowell shares many similarities to Aldinger’s home town
“That’s all I’ve ever done, raise kids and raise other people’s kids,” she says. She grew up in Kuna, Idaho, a town that shares a lot of similarities with Lowell, which inspired her to open her daycare here.
“It reminds me of my hometown, too, growing up in Kuna, Idaho. We had a super small town just like this. We had a store just like Bridgetown, one gas station and one high school,” Aldinger said.
Aldinger came to Oregon because of her husband’s work in 2009 and settled in the Santa Clara area, eventually moving to Fall Creek.
When her youngest child reached school age, she decided to return to childcare and needed a place to begin. One day, as she was driving past the building she owns in Lowell, she told her husband she wanted to buy it. He told her it wasn’t for sale, but she was determined. First, she wrote the owners a letter. Within two weeks a deed was drafted. The property was soon acquired.
The building has a long history

The center’s backyard has been renovated to include turf, a picnic table, and a slide.
The building the daycare occupies was long used as a restaurant and still has the industrial kitchen to prove it. Built in 1935, the 1,300-square-foot building has a long history as being one of the only restaurants in Lowell. Long-time Lowell residents will remember it as Bedrock Pizza, a restaurant famously known for the Ferris wheel in the backyard. Since then, it has been the Outpost Cafe, Mack’s Cafe, a CBD facility and a gluten-free bakery.
Soon after Aldinger purchased the building, the pandemic began and she was hit with a large number of regulations and roadblocks that would make opening the center an even greater challenge. This led to a multi-year-long extension on her plan to make it a daycare. She also faced hurdles simply for opening a business in a small town like Lowell.

Kim Aldinger and the kids she takes care of smile in front of the yellow back gate.
“No one had started a business here in a very long, long time.” She faced paperwork and inspections at the city, county and state levels to prep the building for the daycare. But throughout a global pandemic and mountains of paperwork, she held fast to her goal of serving children.
Aldinger did much of the work on the building
In January of 2023, she began construction, doing most of the work herself with the help of one subcontractor to level the floors. By the end of March, all the construction was done, and Aldinger could finally see the fulfillment of her vision.
Now with the place looking shiny and new, the doors are open to assist families in the area with their childcare needs. The daycare is licensed to take on 24 children and currently serves 15 children who are enrolled in the program. The center accepts children from age six weeks to 12 years old.
Running the center are three teachers and three aides. Aldinger is the only full-time employee who is on site from 7 a.m. when they open to 5 p.m. when the center closes. The facility currently does have openings. Anyone interested can call 541-937-4037.
Looking back at her last three-and-a-half months of business and years of preparations, Kim says, “The kids being happy and helping the families has been the most rewarding part.”

Lydia Plahn is a recent Lowell High School graduate who plans to attend the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University near Chicago this fall.
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.