The Sunflower Early Learning Centre is looking to grow and expand in terms of size. The demand for local daycare in Minitonas has increased, so the centre needs to increase its size to accommodate the demand.
“We are licensed for 35 children between the ages of 12 weeks and 12 years of age, and provide care to a total of 46 children from our Valley, with shared spots and accommodating part-time spots,” said Sunflower Early Learning Centre Executive Director Michelle Rinsdorf. “We employ 10 people from our Valley, including youth seeking after-school jobs who are interested in joining the field and summer students.
“We are currently located in the old Minitonas Early Years School, where we began in 2016. We strive for an inclusive, high-quality program and provide daily activities in a variety of curriculum areas based on the developmental needs and abilities of every child. We arrange our environment indoors and outdoors to be a space that inspires children to grow and learn freely, often adding and adapting learning areas to enhance their learning in specific interests.
“For example, when they were interested in airplanes, we provided activities that expanded their knowledge of airplanes and even created a giant cardboard airplane in their room,” said Rinsdorf. “We strongly believe in community engagement and seek opportunities to connect the children and families in our program with our local businesses and organizations. We love to attend the local library every week in the summer, we take the children on field trips and bring in a variety of locals as guest speakers and shop locally for our supplies and materials. We have worked really hard at ensuring that our program is more than just a babysitting service and strive for excellence in our everyday operations.
“When the school closed, our daycare stayed back in the building and continued growing. We added infant spaces since opening and then received our funding for school-age spaces, and almost two years ago, we expanded our preschool spots. We are very happy that we have grown so much, but we have outgrown the space needed to ensure we are providing the best care possible.
“The building we are utilizing has rooms designed for school-age children, with multiple sets of stairs in the way of getting to the rooms and for our younger children,” said Rinsdorf. “Especially since we’ve expanded and have more younger children in care, it continued growing as a safety concern and not a truly inclusive environment, as anyone who had physical limitations. This included some children who broke their leg and couldn’t attend childcare, which meant their parents’ employment was affected.
“We also don’t have infant/toddler-sized washrooms available and the available ones are located outside of our rooms and upstairs, which has been quite difficult when it comes time for children to learn how to use a potty safely. The building is also an aging building, and it became obvious that it wouldn’t be a long-term home for us without extensive work that was not an option at the time.
“The opportunity to purchase our own building presented itself when the old local Knox United Church came for sale and our volunteer board of directors carefully and thoroughly deliberated before reaching the decision to move forward with this plan,” said Rinsdorf. “The plan is to ensure our community is able to provide steady and reliable high-quality child care for years and years to come.”
A drafted plan of what the renovated space for the centre will look like has been released.
“We get the comment a lot and know that the new building is smaller than the school building we are in; however, there is sufficient space to actually exceed government regulations for room sizes for each group of children while also ensuring we will have ample space for storage, a programming room with craft materials and supplies, an office and a kitchen,” said Rinsdorf. “We are excited that we are expanding the mezzanine to create a whole other floor that will be used for extra space.
“There will be child-sized bathrooms in each room so that children will be able to successfully learn how to use the potty safely and our play yard is going to be a beautiful green space. We will have doors in our infant and preschool rooms leading directly outdoors to the play space, which makes transitions smooth and safe, and we will be installing a lift system in our entrance way for anyone with accessibility needs. The space will be much more appropriately sized and utilized for our program.
“The designs have been looked over, adapted and tweaked a few times now to ensure the space we are creating will, in fact, be a long-lasting, high-quality environment,” said Rinsdorf. “We have worked closely with MB Early Learning and Child Care to develop plans as well as public health and fire and safety. We have been very fortunate that we have a wonderful board member with an eye for design who has volunteered many hours talking and planning with me about what a high-quality daycare would have, including collaborating with other centers in the province who have built or done renovations.”
With the plans completed comes one of the more challenging tasks, which is raising funds to get the renovations started. The Sunflower Early Learning Centre has already begun fundraising and currently has some fundraisers on the go.
“We started our fundraising for this project since we purchased the building in 2023,” said Rinsdorf. “Some of our fundraising efforts have included monthly hot lunches for our families, Mabel’s Labels, Muddy Buddy Sales, an indoor garage sale, and a few 50/50 raffle draws. Last Christmas, we did an art auction of special artwork the children worked hard on and that was a fun and special opportunity for our community and families.
“This past December, we had the opportunity to do a Travel Voucher fundraiser where the winner got to choose between $3,000 cash or a $4,000 travel voucher through Swan Valley Travel. We were so fortunate last fall that we were chosen by the Swan Valley Co-op for the Fuel Good Day. We did a BBQ at the gas station that day with their support, and had a record-breaking event. We brought back our Trivia Night Fundraiser in 2024 and hosted our third annual night on February 28th. Last year, that brought us in over $10,000.
“We also do a 50/50 draw, silent auction, and this year we are doing a meat raffle sponsored by Red Bull Farms at the event,” said Rinsdorf. “Last year, a local community member took home $2,400 in our 50/50 draw from Trivia Night. We are currently selling raffle tickets for Countryfest, which was fully and generously sponsored by JB Construction, Campbell’s Construction T.A. Bartel Family Grain Farms and Cody Conrad.
“We have also been grateful recipients of local grants to put towards our project, including significant grants from the Swan Valley Credit Union and the Community Foundation of Swan Valley. Local businesses and families have an exciting opportunity to partner with us on this project as well, and all support will be honoured with a commemorative plaque in our completed building.
“We have a really fun fundraising event lined up for June 20th, 2026, that is a truck/machine explore event for families,” said Rinsdorf. “We have so many fun ideas lined up for that day, as it will also commemorate our 10-year anniversary.
“We would love to raise $100,000 to be able to put directly into this project, and we are so appreciative of every donation, grant, support of materials or items, or opportunity to fundraise because no amount is too small. I am very grateful to be a part of this and excited to see it come to life.”
As the centre continues to raise funds, they are waiting on final approvals before the work can begin.
“Now that our plans are almost complete and waiting for final approvals, we are itching to get the real work started,” said Rinsdorf. “What we have learned to be true is that everything with the government takes some extra time, so we have had to be patient and wait for everything to be approved along the way. Ideally, this time next year, we will be in our completed building.”

There’s something nostalgic about taking a trip down memory lane. Ray’s Strings and Things is giving people that opportunity to reminisce about the good ol’ days when it comes to music from the Valley with their Memory Lane. The project started as an idea and has now led to a collection of musicians and bands spanning over decades, from the Valley.
“We have a wall called Memory Lane here at the shop dedicated to musicians from the Valley,” said Ray’s Strings and Things Owner and Operator RJ McGregor. “One of our longtime customers and a good friend was talking with us about how many music stores there were back in the day and how many talented musicians there were. Back then there were posters and autographed pictures hung up all over, showcasing musical talent.
“We thought it would be interesting to put a spin on it if we featured all local talent. It kind of snowballed from there. Leonard Constant, a lifelong musician, donated the sign for our wall.”
McGregor is looking for people to bring in photos, posters, and bios of musicians and bands that have ties to the Swan Valley area. He will post them up on the Memory Lane wall in the shop for people to see.
“I received about a half dozen last week and they keep coming in,” said McGregor. “I have one five-piece band, about a dozen other bands, and then fifteen other artists. Every week, there are more coming in. The first two I received were from a granddaughter of two Benito musicians. I also have one from the Swan River School Band in 1967. There is a lot of school band history from here and that is great to have.
“People who bring us a submission for the Memory Lane provide us with a little bit of background on the musician or band. I had one person bring in a photo of a band from the 1960s and he not only brought in the photo, but one of the posters from a dance they performed at in 1966 or 1967.
“I have had people come into the shop, see the photos and tell me they are going to bring some in as well.
“The other thing we are trying to get a hold of as well is old dance posters too,” said McGregor. “If anyone has a paper poster from a dance back in the day, we would gladly copy it and hang it up on the wall. Some of these photos are the only ones people have, so we copy them and give them their originals back.
“I’ve had people mention they have some well-known musicians from the area, from back in the day, but the photo is old and of them playing at a kitchen party. I told them I wanted the photo for the Memory Lane wall. Back then, a lot of musicians played house parties or just sat around kitchen tables playing music.”
Looking back at the Valley’s musical history, there are many musicians who went on to do some recording. There are also familial ties to musical talent that can be seen as well.
“There are a few musicians from this area who have gone on to do some recording,” said McGregor. “Richard Adams wrote a song called Rodeo Cowboy for the band Garry Lee and Showdown.
“There are a few other musicians with local connections. One is Marianne Hulme and she is Austin Ryder’s great-aunt. So one can see how musical influence can span over generations. It’s really neat to look at.”
McGregor is accepting submissions for the Memory Lane wall and people can stop by the shop to show them what they have.
“I have a great big wall, so I have lots of room for submissions,” said McGregor. “I hope to fill it up.”

A new shop, Telentors, has opened up in The Pas and provides unique items, including anime merchandise and collectibles. Telentors Owner and Operator, Claudine Pronteau, spent many years working in retail and opening up her own shop has been a long-time dream turned into reality.
“I’ve always thought of opening a store for years, but didn’t have the courage to do so,” said Pronteau. “I have had a lot of retail experience. I’ve been working in retail since I was 15 years old, and with all my previous employers that I was employed with over the years. This experience had a lot of influence on me to open a store.”