Five Spartanburg County child care providers have received $164,000 in funding to expand capacity as part of an initiative spearheaded by OneSpartanburg Inc. and launched in April.
Project 100: Quality Childcare for Spartanburg’s Growing Future is a collaborative pilot initiative between OneSpartanburg, Power Up Spartanburg, the Mary Black Foundation, Spartanburg County First Steps and Quality Counts with an initial target of increasing child care capacity countywide by 100 seats.
Expanding capacity
The $164,000 awarded targets facility expansion and/or improvements and creates 107 new child care slots through the following organizations which are actively engaged with the Power Up Spartanburg program to support small and minority-owned businesses:
- Croft Christian Academy will receive $40,000 in funding to complete a renovation, adding three additional classrooms that wouldn’t have opened otherwise. This will allow Croft Christian Academy to create 34 new seats.
- Little Beginner’s LLC will receive $40,000 to upfit a previously closed facility, including roof work, plumbing and electrical, and the addition of a new outdoor play area. With this work, Little Beginner’s will add 31 new child care seats.
- Miss Tammy’s Little Learning Center in Boiling Springs will receive $40,000 in funding to add 20 new seats through the expansion of classroom space.
- Naomi’s Academy will receive $24,000 to expand its offerings to second- and third-shift workers, supporting sleep and safety renovations by moving walls, adding furniture, fans, lights and more. This will allow the center to add 12 new seats.
- Victory in Learning Childcare Academy will receive $20,000 to add bathroom and storage space, and to convert existing storage space into a 1- to 3-year-old classroom. This will allow the facility to add 10 new child care seats.
Each of the child care centers receiving funding has committed to remain actively engaged with Power Up Spartanburg and to join Spartanburg’s Quality Counts program.
Meeting goals
During a presentation ceremony July 1, OneSpartanburg Chief Talent Officer Ron Garner said the Project 100 initiative serves several key strategic goals by improving quality child care and early childhood education, supporting small and minority-owned businesses and improving workforce readiness by expanding child care options.
“The data used to construct the OneSpartanburg Vision Plan 2.0 showed a lack of childcare availability was a barrier to people across Spartanburg County who weren’t currently working but wanted to reenter the workforce,” Garner said. “Project 100 gives us an innovative, and more importantly, scalable, solution for some of these families to get back into the workforce and to do so knowing their children are being cared for in a high-quality, safe, and caring environment.”
Jay Jenkins, OneSpartanburg’s director of small and minority business development, said six additional organizations are in the Project 100 pipeline and could enhance countywide child care options even further in the near future.
