18 Indiana organizations receive grants to help with child care access

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Early Learning Indiana awarded 18 organizations successful Indiana with a full of $1.7 cardinal successful assistance funds to adjacent kid attraction entree gaps successful their communities.

The backing is made possible through a 2019 assistance from Lilly Endowment Inc. to enactment Early Learning Indiana’s statewide enactment to amended entree to high-quality aboriginal learning programs successful Indiana. 

“The situation is great, but the accidental to physique a strategy of much equitable entree for Hoosier children is adjacent greater,” said Maureen Weber, president and CEO of Early Learning Indiana. “Our Closing the Gap assistance recipients person enactment unneurotic collaborative solutions to lick immoderate of the top barriers to entree to high-quality aboriginal learning successful their communities, and we are arrogant to assistance footwear commencement their work.”

The 18 assistance recipients correspond 18 unsocial counties successful Indiana. In total, their proposals volition make 926 caller kid attraction seats for 269 infants and toddlers and 657 preschool and pre-K children. These recipients person projected strategies to code a assortment of community-level entree issues, including providing high-quality aboriginal learning services to families experiencing homelessness, offering attraction options that prioritize extended hours to accommodate parents who enactment precocious shifts, and gathering an intergenerational exemplary connecting aboriginal learners to seniors.

Grant recipients include:

• Adams County Economic Development Corporation – Adams County
• Mental Health America of Boone County — Boone County
• Lewis Cass Schools (Lewis Cass Early Learning Academy) — Cass County
• Boys & Girls Clubs of Harrison-Crawford Counties — Crawford County
• Early Learning Center astatine Hubbard Hill — Elkhart County
• Greene County Foundation — Greene County
• TOTally Kids Childcare astatine St. Mark’s — Hendricks County
• Henry County Child Care Network — Henry County
• Bona Vista Programs — Howard County
• Appleseed Childhood Education, Inc. — Jasper County
• LaunchPad Child Care and Early Learning Coalition — Kosciusko County
• Wee Care Early Learning Ministry — Marion County
• Monroe County United Ministries — Monroe County
• First5 of the Rush County Community Foundation — Rush County
• Scott County School District 2 — Scott County
• ABC & ME — Tipton County
• Union County College Corner Joint School District — Union County
• United Way of the Wabash Valley, Inc. — Vigo County

Wee Care Early Learning Ministry received $100,000 and is the lone Marion County kid attraction installation to get the grant.

“We’re going to usage the wealth for further grooming for grooming our teachers connected trauma,” said Patti Moore, manager of Wee Care. “A batch of our children travel from trauma-based backgrounds. We’re besides going to grow the room due to the fact that we person much students.”

For much accusation connected Early Learning Indiana, click here.