In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Community Foundation is supporting numerous local nonprofits, including the Wild Plum Center and the YMCA of Northern Colorado. We’re pleased to share their inspiring, solutions-driven community responses to address the impact of the pandemic on childcare.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, your Community Foundation Boulder County has granted $1,504,584 in support of numerous local nonprofits, including the Wild Plum Center and the YMCA of Northern Colorado.
We’re pleased to share their inspiring, solutions-driven community responses to address the impact of the pandemic on childcare:
Submitted by Keri Davis, Community Partnership Manager
The need for safe, high-quality early learning and care for children and families has never been as pronounced as it is right now. Additional funding needed to provide care during the pandemic is significant with estimates pointing to a 47% increase in costs related to safely opening childcare centers during the COVID-19.
Funds from Community Foundation Boulder County allowed us to keep doing the work we needed to do for our children and families, both virtually and in person – from buying supplies to give to families, to acquiring additional supplies to reopen safely.
Technology for staff and families was an issue early on in the pandemic, and we needed to ramp things up and buy extra computers. Classrooms needed to be adapted, based on the number of children allowed in a room. Toys had to be purged if they couldn’t easily be cleaned, and new ones were purchased for learning and play. We also adjusted our outdoor environments to make them safe and useable.
Lisa Swainey, Vice President of Community Programs, YMCA of Northern Colorado
Like many childcare providers, the Y has had to implement a long list of procedural and operational changes to ensure compliance with mandates that keep our kids and staff safe. Masks, constant cleaning, stable cohorts, social distancing, well checks, and contact tracing: it’s all part of our reality these days.
Funding from Community Foundation Boulder County has been pivotal for us to afford the additional PPE and staffing costs that have come with the pandemic: staffing an extra person to contact trace and complete daily temperature and well-checks, as well as to walk children to their classrooms (since we don’t allow parents to enter the rooms); additional staff to assist with cleaning throughout the day and at the end of each day; and additional staff to sub when other teachers are asked to quarantine and isolate due to COVID exposures. Foundation funding has also allowed us to provide additional financial assistance for families with reduced income who do not qualify for state assistance.
We’ve had to be incredibly flexible this year. We developed emergency childcare programs within 48 hours of stay-at-home orders. We ran modified summer camps, and developed remote learning and care programs to ensure that local children have safe, supportive spaces to go while their parents worked.
When schools went back for in-person learning, we launched after-school programs at numerous schools. And when they went back to virtual learning, we re-launched our remote learning and care programs. We’re currently providing remote learning childcare programs in four school districts, serving hundreds of students while their parents work. We’re also running two preschools, including Longmont’s YMCA Inspire Preschool, which has provided continuous care since mid-March.
We’ve stayed open without disruption, but revenue loss due to lower enrollment during this time has significantly impacted our budget. Support from the Community Foundation and other donors is keeping us open, and has allowed us to keep our preschool staff employed with benefits. Without funding support, our community would not have a Y – and it would not have childcare programs for the families who really need it.
If you’ve not yet done so in 2020, please consider making a donation to the Community Foundation’s annual operating campaign, adding to our capacity to provide local leadership and to mobilize resources to improve the quality of life for everyone in Boulder County.
