The phone rings, a customer. A distressed parent looking for a last minute babysitter has called Steiner Sitters. Just like that, the student-run business finds the perfect babysitter from their team for their customer.

“There’s this book series called ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’, which is basically a group of four girls, and they have this club, you can call in and schedule a babysitter and one of them will take the job,” sophomore Kira Anderson said. “So I was like, what if we do that but for Steiner Ranch with a bunch of babysitters.”

Steiner Sitters is a babysitting business available every day of the week. They offer babysitting, house sitting, and pet sitting. The co-founders of the club are sophomores Anderson and Shelby Thickstun.

“We wanted to make the business because we wanted to continue expanding our experience in pet sitting and babysitting,” Anderson said. “We want to provide everyone who needs a sitter with an easy way to get one.”

They are currently hiring sitters and have around 14 applicants so far, who are each required to fill out a form and have a Zoom interview. If they are hired, they must sign a contract agreeing to the business’s rules. Many of the people hired, who are all students here at Vandegrift, have years of babysitting experience and are First Aid or CPR certified.

“We are looking for sitters who are responsible, follow our rules, have experience and know how to react in certain situations.” Thickstun said. “We want to make sure the parents feel comfortable with who their babysitter is.”

The business lets the parents decide what to charge the sitters based on how well they feel the sitter did their job. The price for their other services vary depending on the type of sitting. The prices for pet sitting are $10 per visit for visitation pet sitting. As for house sitting they charge $8 a visit for visitational sitting, and for overnight house sitting it’s $15 per day.

“Our business stands out because the sitters work hard, and we are a unified force which makes it really easy for parents,” Anderson said. “Shelby and I are very organized in doing the company, we make sure there’s no problems, and that the parents can easily reach out to us, or the babysitter, so you really get to know who is going to be babysitting your child before they do it.”

The club is spreading the word through Instagram, Facebook, and reaching out to parents and friends. Their Instagram page is @steinersitters, and they can be reached by emailing [email protected]. 

“I hope that the business grows, and we get a lot of customers and hopefully we get regulars that come in and book babysitters,” Anderson said. “I really hope that we get a bond between the sitters and the families, so that everybody knows everybody and it’s just a really good environment.”