The past few months have been a whirlwind, and we’ve done a lot that doesn’t fit squarely into our usual programming. At the end of the day, however, Arapahoe County Early Childhood Council is all about taking care of little kids, and we’ve found that our ability to innovate, collaborate, and align resources is more important than ever!

Meeting the Need

In March 2020, our state had its first confirmed cases of coronavirus and by April, it was already transforming our community, especially child care programs and families with young children. Early on, we heard from families and child care programs who needed help. Some families, with parents laid off or furloughed, were struggling to make ends meet. While child care providers who were open or participating in the Emergency Child Care Collaborative found store shelves empty of baby supplies.

We joined forces with others from around the state to distribute essential baby supplies from FEMA to families and child care programs in need. The Statewide Feeding Task Force brought $3 million worth of essentially baby supplies to our state. (Click here to learn more about the statewide effort.)

We received a portion of that order to help support Arapahoe County and surrounding areas. Although we were willing to take on distribution, we couldn’t quite fit all ninety thousand diapers, not mention thousands of baby wipes and formula. We are incredibly thankful to Frank and Gigi Omair, owners of Little Angels Daycare, for lending their Aurora storage space to use for this work. Little Angels became our distribution hub in recent weeks as we distributed essential baby supplies and other materials to surrounding areas. Many of our staff hand-delivered these supplies to those we currently serve.

So far, we've distributed diapers and formula to 24 families, 12 partner agencies, and 25 child care programs in Arapahoe County. 

We also served as a resource hub, distributing supplies to other local nonprofits so they could pass them along to the families. Thank you to all for working with us to serve the community.

Keeping It Clean

Meanwhile, we collaborated with Tri-County Health Department to survey child care providers and found that around half of programs that responded had closed. Those who were still open reported that they were also in desperate need of face masks for staff and cleaning supplies like bleach and gloves.

Through the Colorado Office of Early Childhood and Office of Emergency Management, we procured many of these much-needed cleaning supplies and put together kits with bleach, soap, gloves, and more. These kits have gone out to licensed child care programs throughout Arapahoe County. So far, we’ve distributed these kits to 27 family child care providers and 45 child care centers along with packs of face masks.

Moving Forward

We’re in this for the long haul. Want to know how you can support families with young kids and child care programs in your area, too? You can support our work directly while also receiving a 50% tax credit in addition to standard charitable deductions.

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