Meet Marina and Alex Povolotsky of KID-CO Play & Learn Center in Santa Clarita

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marina and Alex Povolotsky.

Alex and Marina are both immigrants in the 1st generation. They came to the United States when they were adults from 2 different countries, Ukraine and Russia. They have met each other through a dating site called “Match.com” in 2009. Both of them were married. However, their marriages fell apart not knowing about each other at that time yet. Alex took 2 years after his divorce, Marina – a couple of days to realize that they can’t be alone for the rest of their lives. Divorce is not a bad thing; it gave them a new beginning together. Alex sent an email to Marina on Match.com website. Marina didn’t want to respond for a while but when she realized that, that was the only chance to come out of her shell, she responded to him. They met at Salt Creak Restaurant in Valencia, CA. It was love from the first sight. Knowing each other just couple of hours, Alex asked Marina to move in with him. That’s how they started their family.

July 7, 2010, they got officially married. In June 30th 2011, they welcomed their daughter Catherine who became an inspiration for the business. KID-CO Play & Learn Center was started because Marina was not able to find a job after quitting FedEx Office. Needless to say, Marina was an English Teacher back in Russia for 5 years. She got her Master’s Degree in Education and BA in English. After giving birth, they decided that Marina needed to stay at home and take care of their daughter. When the time came for her to start working again, she was not able to find a job to help support the family. Her free time with Catherine, she spent with friends at indoor playgrounds or outdoor. By visiting a lot of indoor playgrounds, Marina got an idea of creating a place where children can play and learn at the same time.

One evening, they sat down and started to talk about it. It took them a couple of months to find the right name, the concept that they wanted to implement there. Finally, Alex came up with the name KID-CO and Marina added Play & Learn Center. They started this business with their educational backgrounds and enormous love for children. They had never owned or operated their own business but knew that their love and determination could conquer whatever obstacles come in their way. Fortunately, they were able to survive and see their dream come to life, but not without struggle and perseverance.

Has it been a smooth road?
We are pretty sure that no one has a smooth road at the very begging of their journey with their own business. We didn’t either. It’s still tough, even though we have been in business for a little over 3 years now. You constantly have to change something in our fast speed media time. We have seen a lot of small businesses went out of business because they either couldn’t or didn’t want to adapt new technology time.

One of the biggest struggle, and we think it’s not just us, is hiring and training people. You have to invest tremendous amount of time and money (which is always limited at the beginning). But again, we had to learn on our own by trying and learning from our mistakes.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the KID-CO Play & Learn Center story. Tell us more about the business.
KID-CO is a safe, clean, and stimulating place for kids to play and learn through pretend play. Our approach is to build character and emotional intelligence in children throughout the play. KID-CO is geared for children 6 month to 5 years old who desire an imaginative, challenging, and fun environment in which to exercise, play, and explore.

KID-CO Town has a mini version of a grocery store, restaurant, library, house, post office, workshop and school where children develop their social, intellectual and physical skills. We also provide areas for infants and toddlers which are separate from each other and have age appropriate toys.

What sets us apart from the others is that we are not only indoor playground offering Open Play time and Birthday Party Center but also focusing on classes for the young children.

Our Center specializes on age appropriate classes like Milestones (8 months to 24 months), Terrific 2’s (for 2 year olds) and School Prep (3-5 year olds). We build warm, interactive and educational environment where not only children can learn but parents as well.

We are very proud of our School Prep graduates who are excelling in the Kindergarten.

Contact Info:

• Address: KID-CO Play & Learn Center
  26529 Carl Boyer Dr.,
  Santa Clarita, CA 91350
• Website: www.kid-co.com
• Phone: 661.253.2277
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kid_co/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KID-CO-Play-Learn-Center-264116647127190/?ref=hl
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kid-co-play-and-learn-center-santa-clarita

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