As the COVID-19 pandemic inundated the child care system, Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) received helpful funds from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy to support and provide relief to Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) member organizations across the country. In the summer and fall of 2020, CCAoA used the funds to provide CCR&Rs with resources to meet pressing needs within their communities.
COVID-19 Quick Response Funds
There was an incredible response to the opportunity, and CCAoA was able to offer COVID-19 Quick Response Funds grants, ranging from $10,000-$16,000, to 11 organizations across the country:
- Child Care Aware® of Northwest Arkansas
- Children’s Council of San Francisco and YMCA of San Diego County, Childcare Resource Service in California
- Prince George’s Child Resource Center, Inc. in Maryland
- Milestones in Minnesota
- 4Cs of Passaic County, Inc. and Child Care Connection in New Jersey
- Washington County Child Care Foundation in Oklahoma
- Community Action and Western Oregon University in Oregon
- Family and Childcare Resources of NEW in Wisconsin
The main focuses ranged from distribution of personal protective equipment and cleaning and paper supplies to resources to address the social and emotional needs of both children and caregivers, as well as training and technical assistance for these CCR&Rs to assist providers in implementing health and safety standards, and to offer business stability support.
The impacts of the COVID-19 Quick Response Funds could be felt throughout the child care community. In fact, seven of the subgrantees were able to leverage additional funding in their own service areas, based on those needs identified: Arkansas, Minnesota, California, Oregon, Wisconsin and Maryland.
Additional Resources
For more information on the COVID-19 Quick Response Funds project and the support that subgrantees were able to implement in their communities, we encourage you to browse our COVID-19 Quick Response Grants for CCR&Rs infographic.
Lastly, we know that the needs for the child care community are great. And because of the large volume of requests that were initially received, the Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery Team at CCAoA approached a current funder with a request to use current funds in a flexible manner to accommodate additional funding requests.
With this flexibility, CCAoA was able to fund six additional CCR&R organizations in amounts ranging from $4,500-$10,000 to implement programming focused on meeting the social-emotional needs of children and caregivers due to the ongoing stress presented by COVID-19. Those six additional subgrantees provide services in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and South Dakota.
Child Care Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery Resources
The Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery team at Child Care Aware of America provides training and technical assistance, and much-needed resources to members, child care providers and families. Please be sure to visit our website at www.childcareprepare.org.
If you know of a child care program, provider or CCR&R agency or staff member who excels in emergency preparedness or has gone above and beyond during emergency response or recovery, we would like to hear their story.
Finally, if you have questions about recovering from COVID-19, please check our our COVID-19 and Child Care Resource Hub.
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