Businesses leading charge for local, affordable child care

    Holyoke Community Childcare Initiative is moving forward with its planned day care facility, and project coordinator Elizabeth Hutches said the prospect of easily accessible local child care is closer than it has ever been.
    “We’re far and above where we were before,” she said.
    The Holyoke Community Childcare Initiative was approved as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2017. The HCCI board includes chair Trampas Hutches, vice chair Tom Bennett, treasurer Trisha Herman, Steve Young, Julia Biesemeier, Olga Sullivan and Tiffany Watson.
    Hutches said the Holyoke area is considered a “child care desert.” While a number of neighboring towns — including Wray, Julesburg, Haxtun, Yuma and Imperial, Nebraska — have sufficient child care resources within the community, Holyoke struggles to provide for its families.
    Day cares in town have long waitlists and small staffs. Because state law requires one caregiver for every two infants, minor incidents, like a staff member getting sick or going on vacation, could result in a dozen or more families being left with nowhere to send their children.
    In a 2018 HCCI survey of Holyoke families, more than 42 percent of respondents said they used family members as a child care resource. About 53 percent said they had difficulty finding child care for one or more of their children.
    A presentation produced by HCCI reported that for every family that utilized out-of-town care facilities, the average one-way drive time was 30 minutes.
    The most recent push for local, affordable child care began in early 2017. While past efforts have been largely grassroots and led by parent volunteers, Hutches said this push has been different because of the financial backing and other support received from local businesses.
    “It’s amazing when everybody pulls together — which this community does well — what you can get done,” she said.
    Local supporters include Melissa Memorial Hospital, First Pioneer National Bank, Seaboard Foods, CHS Grainland and Sully Team Realty.
    Hutches is paid for her work by HCCI, which allows her to devote more time to writing grants and pursuing other opportunities than volunteers in the past.
    In the second quarter of 2017, HCCI secured grant money from the Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation and entered into a collaboration with the Colorado Center for Community Development, Colorado Department of Local Affairs and University Technical Assistance to do a feasibility study.
    The study revealed a high demand for child care services and a relatively high rate of poverty in the county, city and local census tract. It also suggested that a low-cost structure would make the facility more attractive than local options for the 386 people that were said to commute to work in Holyoke each day.
    The board will be establishing a fundraising committee in the near future, which will increase their eligibility for grants, as many grants require they be matched by a certain percentage of local funding.
    The land for the facility will be leased from Melissa Memorial Hospital. The site is located north of the main hospital complex, within the surrounding plot of vacant land that the hospital also owns.
    HCCI’s facility would accommodate 80 pre-K children during the day, with hopes of expanding to include an after-school program for 20 older kids later. It would include a large indoor play area. Hutches said that she foresaw the facility being open in about two years.
    A preliminary design for the facility has been received from the University of Colorado, and local designers are working to scale it down and make it more affordable.
    The initiative is still looking for a director and is willing to help those interested in becoming certified to look for scholarship opportunities.
    Hutches said the facility will bring new business and residents to Holyoke, and that even locals without children will see the benefits.
    “My children are 16 and 13. I have no need for a child care facility, at all,” she said. “I just love Holyoke, and this community really needs it.”