Essential Employees are Eligiable for FREE Child Care

Did you know that child care if FREE for essential employees? Help us spread the word!

Listen to our Executive Director for more details!

Building on these existing options, the CARES Act provides additional flexibility for providing direct child care services to essential workers. Lead Agencies may use CARES Act funds to provide child care assistance to health care sector employees, emergency responders, sanitation workers, and other workers deemed essential by public officials during the response to COVID-19, without regard to the income eligibility requirements. Therefore, Lead Agencies may provide CCDF subsidies to essential workers whose income exceeds 85 percent of State median income.

Lead Agencies have the flexibility to define which workers are essential, in accordance with any relevant State, Territorial, and Tribal laws or policies. Lead Agencies should consult with their jurisdiction's chief executive, and may want to consider:
- Health care and public health workers
- Law enforcement, public safety, and first responders
- Child protective services workers, those who provide services in the child welfare system, and other critical social services workers
- Food and agriculture workers (including grocery store and restaurant workers and food truck delivery drivers)
- Child care workers
- Utility employees
- Water and waste water employees
- Transportation and logistics workers
- Public works employees
- Communications and information technology workers
- Other community-based government operations and essential function employees
- Critical manufacturing workers
- Hazardous materials workers
- Financial services employees
- Chemical workers
- Defense industrial base employees

APPLY TODAY! Scroll to the bottom and select "State-Level Information for Essential Workers Seeking Child Care".

Thank you to Cassidy Alexander from Daytona Beach News-Journal for writing this article and Kim Vukelja, Owner of Imagination Station in Daytona Beach for helping to get the word out! AND to USA Today for publishing!

"We are gonna be the biggest part of a comeback, besides people going to work: having a place to put their children that they can trust and feel comfortable with," said Cindy Lehnhoff, director of the National Child Care Association. "It's going to be hard if we don't do something to keep providers like (Imagination Station) open."

Read the Article

Picture: David Tucker, Daytona Beach News-Journal

FundChild Care in the HEROES Act

The latest House coronavirus bill text, the HEROES Act, includes $7 billion for CCDBG funding for the child care industry, but child care providers, advocates, and national organizations are calling for much more. In the last month, the child care sector has lost more than 300,000 workers, a third of its workforce, and data from the National Women's Law Center and the Center for Law and Social Policy show that it will take at least $9.6B per month to sustain the child care sector. Unless Congress provides significant funding for the child care sector, data from the Center for American Progress finds that the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a permanent loss of nearly 4.5 millionchild care slots.

This is why we're calling on Congress to act immediately.

Call your U.S. Representative: The call in number is live for people to urge their Representative to #FundChildCare. People can text "CARE" to 747-464 or call 1-888-523-8974.

AND send an email to YOUR Legislators (NOTE: Use the links highlighted here to find your leaders).

US Representatives | Senators | Governors

SAMPLE EMAIL LANGUAGE

Subject: FundChild Care in the HEROES Act
Dear [Member of Congress],

I'm writing to ask you to support the child care industry with increased funding in the HEROES Act. I want to  thank you for the emergency coronavirus child care measures you've helped pass thus far, but $7 billion for child care currently in the HEROES Act is not enough for child care providers to keep their doors open. Just in the last month, the child care sector has lost more than a third of its workforce. Analysis of the child care sector shows that it will take at least $50 billion per month to sustain the child care sector for just six months. Unless Congress provides significant funding for the child care sector, the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a permanent loss of nearly half of all child care.

The child industry needs substantially more funding so that the economy can reopen. Child care providers support our families, businesses, and the economy. You can support them by increasing funding in the HEROES Act right away.

Thank you!