Picture a Monday morning without child care in York County. Parents who normally head to hospitals, classrooms, small businesses, offices, and service counters suddenly find themselves scrambling to rearrange schedules, miss work, cancel meetings, and patch together care.
Employers feel their absence immediately. Appointments with clients need to be canceled. No one is available to serve customers. Deadlines are missed.
Families lose income if parents don’t use paid time off. Children miss the routines, relationships, and learning they count on each day.
Across the county, routines unravel and the local economy feels the strain.
When child care stops, so does everything else.
That’s why York County is taking part in the fifth annual Day Without Child Care, sponsored nationally by Community Change Action, on Monday, May 11. The local campaign, York County Runs on Childcare, is being organized by Community Connections for Children, the School District of the City of York, United Way of York County, and the York County Economic Alliance.
York County is taking a “virtual” day without child care. Programs will remain open. The campaign is focused on educating the community about the critical role of early childhood education.
An urgent and growing need
Community Connections for Children, the Early Learning Resource Center for regions 9 and 10 in Pennsylvania, reports that early childhood education programs in York County operate at an average 85% of their pre-COVID-19 pandemic enrollment because of staffing shortages as compensation can’t compete with that of other career fields. Home-based providers report waiting lists averaging 15 to 20 children, while early childhood education centers have an average of 50 to 75 children waiting, with many programs no longer adding names to their lists.
More than half of Pennsylvanians live in a child care desert. According to a 2023 report from ReadyNation and Start Strong PA, Pennsylvania’s child care crisis costs the state an estimated $6.65 billion annually in lost earnings, productivity, and tax revenue.
Behind those numbers are families and care providers whose stories illustrate why investing in early childhood education strengthens the whole community.
Ward builds a foundation for the future
At TLC for Youth LLC in Seven Valleys, preschool children explore Tara Ward’s expansive backyard, hunting for worms and playing music on makeshift instruments. Ward operates a certified home-based child care program that focuses on the whole child.
Ward has worked in early childhood education for about 20 years. After becoming a mother in 2017, she learned more about self-regulation tools and mindset skills, first using them with older children through life coaching. She realized those tools needed to be employed much earlier in a child’s development.
“That’s when I came back to my roots of early childhood and integrated the life coaching skills with the early childhood field,” she says.
For Ward, child care is what makes the world of work possible. Parents need to know their children are safe, supported, and learning so they can do their jobs well.
“Parents are super grateful that they can go to work and just be fully present and not have to worry about their child,” Ward says.
Every Child Has Opportunities, ECHO, an initiative led by Community Connections for Children and York County Economic Alliance, has helped Ward strengthen her operation through an Innovation Grant. The grant allowed her to purchase high quality educational resources for her indoor and outdoor learning areas. An ECHO Professional Development Grant will enable her to attend a nature conference and bring ideas back to the children she serves.
Ward recognizes the balance that providers must achieve every day, including keeping child care affordable while building a high-quality program and supporting their own families.
“I want legislators to understand that we’re early childhood providers, and we’re creating programs that are helping them [children] grow and learn,” Ward says. “We’re building that foundation for their future.”
Lancaster finds relief through quality care
Jaime Lancaster has experienced the stress of searching for care while navigating work, family responsibilities, and the needs of a child. Her son, Connor, age 3, attends Ward’s program at TLC for Youth. Lancaster works full time at Glatfelter Insurance in York. When she began looking for child care shortly after Connor was born, many centers had waiting lists of six to 12 months.
After trying various options, she found the right fit with Ward’s home-based program. Quality early childhood education gives her stability and the confidence that Connor is learning every day.
“Without child care my family’s life would change drastically, and probably for the negative,” she says.
For Lancaster, even one day without care can mean using paid time off from work and then returning to a pile of tasks that need to be completed. She says Connor would miss not only learning his letters and numbers but training in emotional expression, social development, and behavioral skills.
“I wish that there were words to convey how important it is to invest in these child care centers,” she says.
Fregm provides a place where all children belong
At WeeConnect Early Learning Center, Rande Fregm sees child care through the lens of inclusion and family stability.
Fregm is the founder and board president of the center-based program in York. It grew out of a need she saw during her therapeutic early intervention work. Families were calling again and again because they could not find consistent, reliable child care, especially for children with a variety of needs.
She created WeeConnect to be a place where all children could belong, no matter their disabilities or needs. With support from ECHO, WeeConnect has grown from serving eight children to almost 40.
“If children don’t go to child care, parents don’t go to work,” Fregm says.
When a parent loses the ability to work, the effect ripples into workplaces and through the community. The result can be more significant for children with additional needs, who cannot easily bounce from placement to placement.
Early Childhood educators remain underpaid. In PA, 24% of child care educators receive public assistance to offset the average $12 per hour wage. “I think we’re asking our staff to put the weight of our community’s future on their shoulders,” Fregm says.
Yet early childhood education professionals often remain underpaid, even as providers are expected to support their professional growth without the financial resources to reward that work.
Fream knows when child care works, communities work
Jenna Fream and her husband work full time. Their two children, ages 5 and 3, attend WeeConnect.
For Fream, child care makes daily life possible. It allows her and her husband to work without constantly rearranging schedules or risking lost income. Just as importantly, high-quality early childhood education gives them peace of mind.
At WeeConnect, Fream sees her sons building strong relationships and social skills.
“We know our children are in good hands day to day,” Fream says. “We don’t have to spend our days at work worrying about what’s happening.”
If their child care disappeared long-term, Fream says, she likely would need to stop working. That would affect not only her household income but the clients she serves as a physical therapist in early intervention.
Even one day without child care can disrupt an entire week for a family, requiring parents to shift work hours, work later at night, or scurry to make up missed time. The disruption affects children, too, because they depend on routine and structure.
Investing in child care strengthens York County
Child care is a system that allows other systems to function.
For providers such as Ward and Fregm, financial assistance such as ECHO grants furnishes the ability to improve program quality, support staff, and serve more children. For parents such as Lancaster and Fream, that assistance results in their ability to work and know their children are learning in safe, nurturing environments.
For children, it means the chance to build relationships, practice social skills, develop confidence, and begin their education with a solid foundation.
York County Runs on Childcare is more than a campaign slogan—it reflects a reality felt every day by families, employers, providers, and communities across the county. When child care is strong, York County is stronger.
About Community Connections for Children
Community Connections for Children has served York County families, childcare programs, and businesses for nearly 40 years. It administers the Child Care Works program that helps low income working families pay for childcare, Keystone STARS, which provides coaching, mentoring, and training to improve the quality of childcare programs, and resource & referral services to help families find care.
Every Child Has Opportunities (ECHO) is an early childhood education initiative in York County, Pennsylvania, led by Community Connections for Children and the York County Economic Alliance. ECHO funding partners include WellSpan Health, the J. William Warehime Foundation, the Powder Mill Foundation, United Way of York County, the Kinsley Foundation, and the York County Community Foundation.
For more information on Community Connections for Children, visit www.cccforpa.org.
For more information on ECHO’s grant programs, including the innovation grant program mentioned, visit www.echoyork.org/grants-and-programs.