Last fall, Roman Hollowell contemplated closing the small child care center he runs out of the first floor of his childhood home in Denver’s Whittier neighborhood. Enrollment at “Kids 4 Real, Inc.” was dwindling and he didn’t know if he could keep the lights on for much longer.

It was a tough decision for Hollowell. His mother Oneta had opened the center in 1993 and run it for nearly two decades until she died of a rare form of cancer in 2012. Although he’d never envisioned himself in the child care field, he was reluctant to abandon the business his mother began building when he was a sports-loving high school kid.

“It was important for me to continue her legacy,” said Hollowell on recent Monday morning at the center. “Something just kind of told me to hang in there and stay the course.”

What helped turn his intuition into action was a program called Early Learning Ventures Shared Services model, or ELV. The non-profit, launched in 2009 by the David and Laura Merage Foundation, aims to help Colorado child care providers save time and money by giving them the tools to operate more efficiently. In exchange for access to ELV’s web-based platform, providers pay a monthly fee ranging from $50 to $250.

Read the full story on Chalkbeat Colorado.