2025 Economic Impact Awards 21-35 Years in Business: Little Sunshine’s Playhouse and Preschool

Little Sunshine’s Playhouse and Preschool offers both preschool and child care services in Springfield and across the nation.

It started as a small, in-home day care, but grew quickly, with the first franchise opening in November 2005 in Ozark. From 2019 through 2024, it has doubled its revenue to $73 million.

Now, with over 100 local employees and nearly 1,000 nationwide, this home-grown multistate business now has 38 locations in 16 cities, including four locations in the Queen City. And while providing jobs in the city, paying both state and local taxes, and supporting other local businesses when possible definitely have their own economic impacts, supporting local families creates an even wider and deeper impact zone.

“We allow economic production to flourish for the 400 families that use our care,” says Brett Roubal, CEO of Little Sunshine’s Playhouse and Preschool, of their clients in Springfield. “It allows them to go to work, whether they’re working from home, working in the office, working as teachers, working as nurses, as doctors, as firefighters, working at home, or doing all of the different things that need to be done in the home.

Those are the second order effects that I think about a lot, where the service that we provide directly provides all these second order, indirect effects throughout the region.”

Although Little Sunshine’s Playhouse is active in local charity work, including donation drives, service projects, and fundraising for organizations like the Diaper Bank of the Ozarks, CASA of Southwest Missouri, and the United Way of the Ozarks, some of the most important work that they do within the company is lifting one another up.

“I would say I’m most proud of the fact that we provide an environment and a culture of advancement,” says Roubal. “I could name dozens and dozens of examples of people who start in certain positions and have evolved into leadership roles all throughout our company, including in our home office. Our growth allows us to do that, but also our culture of education and support and encouragement also allows that.”

Growing from its humble roots in the past two decades, the company has had a substantial impact across the country. But that’s not the end of their story.

More projects are in process, company officials say, all of which will be owned by the founders of Little Sunshine’s Playhouse. This will help the company reach its goals of becoming a recognizable national brand.