A Rossland child care facility will receive a Child Care Capital Grant from the Columbia Basin Trust.
The Trust announced over $1 million to create 100 new licensed child care spaces and provide new equipment and improvements to 41 facilities in the Basin on Thursday.
“These new spaces are an essential step forward in helping families around the Basin access child care,” said Johnny Strilaeff, CEO of Columbia Basin Trust, in a press release. “We’re also helping child care providers add equipment and upgrade their facilities to provide safer and more engaging places that support early learning and healthy child development.”
The Rossland facility receiving funding is the Rossland Child Care Society’s Golden Bear Children’s Centre.
Golden Bear will receive $26,720 to renovate its storage room into additional child care space and to complete minor renovations and maintenance.
Ketna Makwana, manager of Golden Bear, said she was grateful and “extremely excited” to learn the centre had received the funding applied for.
Golden Bear has been working on renoating its building over the past two years and has received previous support from the Trust, but the funding provided through the Child Care Capital Grant will allow staff to complete the final part of the project.
“When we received news that we had been granted the funds that we had requested, obviously we were overjoyed and it’s a big relief that we can finally go ahead now and continue on with our project,” said Makwana.
This is the first intake for the Child Care Capital Grants program, which launched in the fall of 2017.
The program is offering $1 million per year for three years. The next intake is will take place in spring 2018.
Visit ourtrust.org/childcarecapitalgrants for more information.