press release 05-14-19
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 14, 2019
PRIVATE AND CORPORATE DONORS COMMIT $300,000 TO HELP SOLVE THE CHILD CARE SHORTAGE CRISIS
Build Up for San Mateo County’s Children receives new contributions of capital funding to help child care and preschool programs expand their facilities.
Redwood City, CA – To address the critical shortage of child care and preschool spaces, corporate and private donors have contributed $300,000 in capital funding to spur new child care and preschool facilities development in San Mateo County. These funds will help bring approximately 100 new child care spaces to the region.
An individual donor contributed $250,000 through Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) to start Build Up’s Child Care and Preschool Capital Fund. From the fund, SVCF awarded grants to three organizations; the remainder will be used to sustain the fund in future years. Grant recipient organizations include:
- Puente, a nonprofit serving the South Coast, received a capital grant to bring the first licensed infant child care program to this underserved area. Building upon their current parent-led co-op, Puente is renovating space to better serve some of the twenty children currently on their waitlist.
- IHSD, San Mateo County’s Head Start provider, received a capital grant to serve infants and toddlers in East Palo Alto, and a planning grant to determine the feasibility of adding an infant program in Half Moon Bay. In East Palo Alto, IHSD is leveraging a new Early Head Start grant to provide the program at no cost to low-income parents. The two new Early Head Start classrooms will be ready to open in August 2019.
- The Redwood City School District received a planning grant to conduct a feasibility study for using vacant District classroom space for infant/toddler child care.
Gilead Sciences, Inc. is Build Up’s first corporate donor with a grant of $50,000 to Build Up’s Child Care and Preschool Capital Fund. As a leading employer in San Mateo County, Gilead is well-positioned to understand the challenges working families face in securing child care in the community, and to model employer-best practices that help alleviate the child care and preschool shortage. “Gilead hopes our funding will be a catalyst for other local businesses to partner with Build Up and grow an early childhood facilities fund to increase access to quality care,” said Joydeep Ganguly, Senior Vice President of Corporate Operations.
“These generous donations take us one step closer to ensuring that parents in San Mateo County can find affordable, high quality child care for their babies and toddlers,” said Michelle Sioson-Hyman, deputy director at SVCF’s Center for Early Learning. “Investments in child care from businesses and philanthropists are so crucial now given the Bay Area’s extremely pressurized real estate climate. It’s hard enough to find housing – and equally difficult for child care providers to find affordable, safe space to serve local families and children. We are so appreciative of Gilead’s leadership and vision in recognizing the value of child care, not just for their employees but for the overall economy of the community in which their business is located.”
Build Up is seeking additional philanthropic contributions from individual and corporate donors to grow the Child Care and Preschool Capital Fund to meet the full capital needs in the County. Donors can support specific projects or contribute to the general fund. A recent study estimated a need for $420 million in capital funding to fill the child care and preschool gap and identified roles for both public and private funders.
About Build Up
Build Up for San Mateo County’s Children formed in 2018 to address a critical shortage of affordable, high-quality child care and preschool options. With an ambitious goal to increase the child care supply by 3,000 spaces by 2020, Build Up engages local companies to encourage them to create child care facilities for their employees, tracks local real estate projects for child care opportunities, identifies resources to build new child care and preschool facilities, and generates funding to renovate existing facilities. Build Up also works with cities and the county to improve policies for child care development and provide technical assistance to child care operators. Leadership is provided by First 5 San Mateo County (F5SMC), the Child Care Coordinating Council (4Cs) of San Mateo County, the County of San Mateo, the San Mateo County Office of Education, and Center for Early Learning at Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF). The initiative is a response to the 2016 Child Care and Preschool Task Force,commissioned by F5SMC and convened by SVCF, that recommended multi-sector solutions to the child care shortage and identified a need for a coordinated, cross-agency approach, supported by paid staff, to work on closing the gap. For more information visit https://buildupsmc.com
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Contact: Christine Padilla, Build Up Director
650-517-1436, cpadilla@sanmateo4cs.org