SUNDRE — The new federal-provincial government child-care funding agreement that officially rolled out in January has helped prompt an enrolment surge at the Sundre Daycare Centre, the non-profit organization’s president said.
“If they’re in our care for a certain amount of hours, we have received that affordability grant and parents are receiving a reduced cost,” said Janelle Mikal.
“So, that has actually increased our enrolment because of that. Now that we have this affordability grant, we’re having a wait list for some of our programs,” Mikal told the Albertan.
Although numbers had been steadily increasing over the past number of years, there was a noticeable jump between today and 2020, when the centre had 36 active families and 49 children in total, she said.
“Now, in March 2022, we’re serving 55 families and 84 children,” she said, adding many of those enrolments are spots in the centre’s after school care for children aged five to 12.
The agreement reached between the provincial and federal governments was previously announced late last year as a plan intended to establish an affordable nation-wide, community-based early learning and child-care system while at the same time unlocking economic potential by enabling parents, especially women, to focus on pursuing their careers. Although depending on people’s levels of income, the program is billed to deliver, on average, $10 per day child-care spaces for youth under the age of six.
To date, feedback from parents has seemed positive, she said.
“Parents are pleased to have this affordability grant rolled out,” she said, adding that people seem to appreciate having the cost burden of child care partially alleviated.
Asked her thoughts on whether the support provided by the federal and provincial governments was adequate, Mikal expressed gratitude on the centre’s behalf for being approved for the grant funding.
But furthermore, she also praised both the Town of Sundre as well as Mountain View County.
“I feel like we’re being supported by Mountain View County and the Town of Sundre,” she said, adding both municipalities have also provided grant funding.
“When we’re writing our grant applications to them, they’re seeing the value of our services that we’re providing our community.”
For example, she said transportation costs alone for summer field trips to Calgary to go to Heritage Park and the TELUS Spark Science Centre can rack up just shy of a $1,000 tab for a single trip to the city.
“And that’s not even including admission costs. We’re able to provide these field trips to families at no additional cost through the municipal funding for the summer programming,” she said.
“We have that affordability grant that’s going to bring down the costs for parents altogether, and then we have these grants through our municipalities that are going to help us to pay for those field trips and offer those enriching experiences to kids.”
As a parent volunteer herself, Mikal said she’s enjoyed being able to join the children on some of the trips.
“It’s awesome to just see those kids glowing,” she said, adding that between busy work schedules and tight budgets, many parents might not otherwise be able to send their children on such field trips.
