By KEVIN POSTBusiness Editor
Business: Cultural Care Au Pair/South Jersey Au Pairs
Location: 122 Bonita Drive, Egg Harbor Township
Owners: Jennifer, 35, and Guy, 39, Petinga, of Egg Harbor Township
Website: jpetinga.aupairnews.com
Phone: 609-705-5841
Employees: Two
Products, services: We offer up to 45 hours per week of in-home childcare as well as light housekeeping.� The number of children in a family doesn't matter.
The au pairs are able to do anything with the children, such as their laundry, as well as drive them to and from their activities. They also can handle preparation for school as well as maintaining the common areas of the home.
For example, they can clean the bathrooms the children use and cook three meals a day for the children.
The au pairs take pride in their culture and therefore like to make dinner for the whole family, preparing cultural dishes from their home countries and sharing that and their language with the family.
Au pairs have flexible schedules. The benefit is that the host family can choose when the au pair works. Au pairs get one and a half days off a week.
Also, the cost of au pair care is usually tax deductible.
All au pairs come to us on J-1 visas and come with an international driver's license, as well as their own health insurance.
The average cost for 45 hours a week based on a 12-month program is $196 a week, that's the au pair's weekly stipend and gets paid directly to them. The agency fee is $136.44 a week.
We have six-, nine- and 12-month programs, and au pairs have the opportunity to extend with their current family for up to two years, the maximum length of their visas.
If you have an au pair work 20 hours a week, the cost would be the same.� Au pairs come from Europe, Central and South America and Asia.
Entry: We started with foreign exchange students and loved the cultural exchange that it brought to our family, so as our children got older and I was finishing up my master's degree, we were looking into childcare.
We also provide monthly cultural activities for our au pairs. For example, we just went kayaking in Mays Landing.
