$200,000 Awarded to Child Care and Early Childhood Education Providers in Northern Virginia

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a host of new challenges to early childhood education and daycare services nationwide and across our region. Today the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, in partnership with the Greater Washington Community Foundation, and PNC Foundation announced a $200,000 Build Back – Dream Forward COVID-19 Response Fund grant to support infant and toddler childcare and early childhood education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Day care centers are incurring additional costs during the pandemic such as personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, and other cleaning supplies. This funding will help cover some of the additional cost of operating,” said Sari Raskin, Vice President of Grants and Community Leadership at the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia. “This funding for childcare providers in our region will help them continue fulfilling their important role.”

The full $200,000 grant has been awarded to support local family-based early care providers through the Infant/Toddler Family Day Care, a high-impact local provider that will directly support 85 Northern Virginia-based family childcare providers, all of which are led by women of color. Each Community Foundation contributed $100,000 towards this award, and the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia’s funding was seeded by a $50,000 gift from the PNC Foundation dedicated to supporting the workforce around early childhood.

“The funding from the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia and the Greater Washington Community Foundation allows us to provide much-needed cash assistance to our essential family childcare workforce,” said Wynne E. Busman, Executive Director, Infant/Toddler Family Day Care. “Our Family Child Care Educators and Infant Toddler Family Day Care of Northern Virginia, Inc. is most thankful for this award.”

“In this time when so many are struggling, we are proud to support Infant/Toddler Family Day Care in this critically important effort for Northern Virginia parents and children,” said Benton Murphy, Associate Vice President, Community Investment, Greater Washington Community Foundation. “We are thankful to the many donors of our COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund for making this gift possible, and to the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia for their partnership with this grant.”

The PNC Foundation’s grant is part of its COVID-19 relief funding for the Greater Washington region, and the support aligns with PNC’s 16-year-old Grow Up Great program; a $500 million, multi-year, bilingual initiative that focuses on preparing children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life.

“Childcare providers are essential small businesses in our region that need help right now,” said PNC Regional President D. Jermaine Johnson. “As part of our efforts to provide COVID-19 hardship relief, we are proud to seed this grant to the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, which will help sustain local providers and support their efforts to continue to meet the safety requirements to serve our region’s youngest learners.”

Visit Build Back – Dream Forward to learn more about this post-COVID-19 growth initiative of the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia’s COVID-19 Response Fund that launched March 13, 2020.