How We Do It:
A Model Rooted in Connection
Global Village Kids empowers refugee and immigrant women as early childhood professionals while providing quality childcare for the Missoula community. Together, we are building a model where every child grows with love and security – and every teacher has the opportunity to work, learn, and belong.
Little Twigs was founded on a simple but powerful belief: that childcare can be a force for connection, belonging, and opportunity. In Missoula, where access to high-quality early care is limited, and where many newcomers struggle to find stability, Little Twigs offers something rare – a place where everyone’s wellbeing is intertwined.
Our goal isn’t to “fix” a problem. It’s to build on the strengths that already exist: the love parents have for their children, the resilience of women rebuilding their lives, and the community’s shared desire to see every child thrive.
Our Mission
Little Twigs began in 2020 with just six children and a clear purpose: to create a childcare center that honored the heart, mind, and spirit of every child while providing meaningful, stable work for their teachers.
Founded by Marmot Snetsinger, a longtime early childhood educator and infant mental health specialist, the center was designed around attachment, belonging, and the idea that parents, teachers, and children grow together.
In five short years, Little Twigs has become one of the most stable and inclusive childcare centers in Montana serving 85 children each year, employing 33 teachers (75-80% refugees or immigrants), and maintaining a constant waitlist of 20-30 families hoping to enroll.
Families describe it as “a place that feels like family” – where diversity, kindness, and love are not just taught but woven into daily life.
Our Roots & Growth
Little Twigs is thriving, but the system it operates in is fragile. Over the past year, the center has lost two major public funding streams that were essential to maintaining stability for both teachers and families:
The Early Head Start Partnership provided about $6,000 per month in support, helping cover classroom costs for infants and toddlers – children who require the most staff attention, smallest ratios, and highest resources. This funding allowed Little Twigs to maintain its exceptionally low 1:2 infant ratio, provide nutritious home-cooked meals, and keep classrooms staffed with experienced caregivers who could give babies the consistent, responsive attention they need.
When the partnership ended, it left a significant gap in funding for infant care, which is the most expensive and hardest-to-find form of childcare statewide. In Montana, licensed infant capacity meets roughly a third of estimated demand, meaning most families who need infant care cannot access it. Without renewed investment, Little Twigs risks losing the very quality and consistency that define its model – the ability to give every infant individualized care from a trusted, long-term teacher.
The Best Beginnings Child Care Scholarship Program, which provided roughly $7,800 per month in tuition support, made it possible for Little Twigs teachers to afford care for their own children. These scholarships are set to end in January 2026.
The impact will be especially significant at Little Twigs, where most teachers are mothers who arrived in Missoula as refugees and immigrants. Under Best Beginnings, teachers paid no more than $100 per month in copays for their child’s care. Without it, that cost will rise to as much as $700 per child per month – a change that would make continued employment impossible for many of our teachers. For these women, Little Twigs is more than a job; it’s where they’ve learned English, built confidence, and found community. Losing access to childcare would mean losing their work, their support network, and their children’s connection to a nurturing environment.
If these scholarships end without replacement funding, Little Twigs risks losing more than one-third of its teaching staff – a devastating blow in a sector already facing statewide teacher shortages. Montana’s early childhood workforce turnover averages 25-40% annually, and programs everywhere are struggling to recruit and retain qualified caregivers. This loss of teachers would not just be devastating for Little Twigs, but for the families who depend on it and for Missoula’s broader workforce.
Together, these losses total more than $165,000 each year, cutting directly into the foundation of what makes Little Twigs work: the ability for mothers to care for their own children while caring for others.