2025 Year-End Business Grant Awarded to Child’s Play School

WomensNet is pleased to announce the recipient of its 2025 annual $50,000 Year-End Business Grant.

Kaamil Bey Isles, based in Oakland, California, won the September 2025 Business Grant, and is the founder of Child’s Play School.

Take a few minutes to be inspired by her interview with Jama Hernandez about her business growth this year and her plans for the year-end grant.

Video Transcript

Jama: Hi everyone. My name is Jama, and I am on the board of WomensNet. We are so excited to introduce to you our 2025 year end winners. Our winners are all ones that won a monthly $10,000 award, and now we’re here celebrating because they’ve won $50,000! Thank you for carving out some time today to be able to talk to us about what you’ve been doing, and what you’re going to do with the $50,000! We have with us Kaamil, with Child’s Play School, and she’s our September 2025 business category winner with Education & Childcare. Please tell us about your business.

Kaamil: Thank you. Child’s Play School is a play-based all inclusive family childcare program serving infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. We are located in Oakland, California. We blend caregiving with joyful developmentally rich learning. So children thrive, families feel supported, and teachers are valued as professionals. Child’s Play in many ways is the intersection of my world, the educator, the leader, the innovator, and the mom coming together to reimagine what childcare can be,
Jama: Wonderful and such an important work. Can you please tell us since September how things have been going for you?

Kaamil: One of the biggest outcomes of the initial Amber Grant wasn’t just how we use the funds, it was really how the application process changed our thinking. It really pushed me to take a step back and look honestly at our strengths, our impact, and our biggest challenge- which was retaining families through the preschool years. That reflection led to a major insight and a strategic decision. We are officially launching our preschool program in the fall of 2026. Since receiving the grant, we’ve started laying the foundation for that shift. We surveyed about 20 former families to learn what would’ve helped them stay. We held a teacher workshop to understand what support our staff will need for that transition, and we hosted an information session with current families to share the vision and gather feedback. The initial funding is being allocated to curriculum, gross motor development, outdoor play, and teacher training, all intentionally aligned with building a preschool program for children, families, and teachers.

Jama: Thank you. And thank you so much for sharing that insight about your application process and what it helped reveal. Please tell us how you’re going to use this to further develop our teachers and our little ones.

Kaamil: The year-end grant really allowed us to move from planning into implementation as we prepare to launch our preschool program in 2026. And now that we’ve clarified the vision, this funding helps us build the structure to support it well. We’ll be focusing on three areas. Our environment, expanding our outdoor space into a living classroom, and creating learning environments that meet the needs of three and four year olds. Second is our people- adding administrative support, so leadership can spend more time in the classrooms coaching teachers and strengthening instructional quality. And third, is our long-term stability- ensuring we have the systems training and safety measures in place to grow intentionally, not reactively. This next chapter isn’t just about growth for our child’s play school, it’s really about expanding what’s possible in early childhood education. This funding really gives us the runway to launch our preschool program from a position of strength, and to create continuity of care for families during the most formative years.

Jama: Thank you. I absolutely love that. Especially with the intention that you have with working with your teachers and administration. We know that if there’s continuity with our teachers this helps so much and even young learners. And so thank you. Those are such important things.
And so there you have it. Our 2025 year end winners!. Please check out these businesses- they’re amazing. They’re doing awesome things, and track them as we will be in the year and seeing how they are doing. Thank you, thank you, thank you!