A $3,500 grant may not sound like a lot of money, but it could prevent Raissa Lee from having to close the child care business she’s run out of her Irvine home since 2015.
The money would come from $5 million in emergency CARES Act funds that the Orange County Board of Supervisors recently earmarked for child care providers who have been hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. Potential recipients range from small home-based operations like Lee’s to large child care centers and afterschool programs.
“Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I can stay open,” said Lee, whose ABC Mom Learning Center & Child Care downsized from 12 children prior to COVID-19 in March to four children this month.
Lee figures an award of $3,500, the maximum available to a family child care home licensed for up to 14 children, could help pay down about $1,000 in expenses on her credit card for cleaning and sanitary supplies, along with the possibility of hiring someone to help her out a bit while waiting for things to get better.
“If I could just have someone come once or twice a week so I could actually take a break, I would be so grateful.”
Versatile money
The idea behind the $5 million is to help care providers like Lee, who are struggling during the pandemic but didn’t close, to keep going, while also helping other operators who did shut down to reopen.
Figures reported as of Sept. 28 to the state’s Community Care Licensing, which oversees licensed child care providers, indicate that 65 family home child care providers in Orange County and 10 larger centers closed permanently. Another 298 family home child care providers and 492 child care centers at that time said they had shut down because of the pandemic, but many have since reopened, said Sandy Avzaradel, project director for Early Childhood OC, a group focused on the development of young children.
But enrollment is down for an industry that was already operating on small revenue margins, and Avzaradel said the pandemic has only “made it worse.”
The cost of personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies and making changes so children maintain appropriate physical distance is the biggest challenge, Avzaradel said. The money from the county can be used to offset payroll costs, upgrade physical environment under health and safety protocols, or pay for rent or mortgages.
The county fund was approved 5-0 by the board of supervisors at their last meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Grant amounts will vary, from $2,500 to $3,500 for family child care homes, depending on whether they are licensed for eight or 14 children; $175 per child for child care centers; and $100 a child in school-age group care.
The online grant application process — to be handled by the nonprofit Charitable Ventures — opens on Friday, Oct. 30 at 9 a.m., and will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis for qualifying programs. More information is available at charitableventures.org.
“The intent is to be really flexible with the money,” said Kim Goll, president and chief executive officer of First 5 Orange County, the local children and families commission. “It might help some of them come back.
“It might also help us not lose any more footing. This is the bigger problem.”
First 5 has orchestrated donations of supplies to child care providers since the pandemic began. The organization also is paying the $150,000 needed for Charitable Ventures to administer the emergency funding, Goll said.
Fourth District Supervisor Doug Chaffee, a commissioner with First 5 since 2019, and First District Supervisor Andrew Do supported the idea of channeling some of the county’s $554 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act dollars to child care providers.
Chaffee and Do will take part in a virtual news conference 9 to 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 28, to talk about Orange County’s COVID-19 Child Care Relief Grant Program, an event that will be livestreamed on Facebook, at facebook.com/ocgov.
Chaffee’s work was informed by a recent First 5-commissioned child care analysis that showed how the county, pre pandemic, was already not meeting the child care needs of working families. Now, Chaffee said, “it’s just a greater need than ever” to shore up child care providers.
He added: “If it’s a question of funding, then we have to find it.”
Survival
Lee had to lay off her staff of two full-time teachers and three part-time college students who helped run the dual-language English and Mandarin program at her program. Now, Lee, mother to three school-age children engaged in virtual learning at home, is handling all the child care and sanitization duties by herself.
Lee, who is in her 40s, is exhausted. A grant, she said, “would make a huge difference, at least to give me a breather.”
For Yessika Magdaleno, a child care provider for 20 years in Garden Grove, the money would help pay to enclose a patio where as many as 10 children in her care now spend much of their time. The area includes 100-square-foot squares designated as their personal spots. But the weather soon will be too cold to maintain that arrangement, and Magdaleno said her house is too small to hold that many children and still keep six feet of physical distance.
She believes the county money could help her business, Little Flowers Family Child Care, and will apply for a grant as soon as possible. “I hope to be one of the first ones. I’m telling you, I’m going to get myself up early with everything ready to submit.”
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