Regional agencies awarded child care grants

May 31—EAU CLAIRE — United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley is among the Wisconsin groups that will receive a grant to help solve the challenges facing the state's child care system.

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families announced Tuesday the award of more than $20 million in Project Growth grants to 28 cross-sector community teams and over 100 businesses.

The Dream Up! grant program focuses on building child care supply through a collaborative community approach. Twenty-eight teams will receive strategic planning support and $75,000 in grant funding to evaluate, plan, sustain and expand existing child care, and support new child care programs. Additional $5,000 stipends will be allocated to participating child care providers who submit business improvement plans during the strategic planning process.

"This grant is incredibly important for Chippewa and Eau Claire counties to formulate a process to arrive at innovative solutions around child care," local United Way director Andy Neborak said. "We hope the process that is set to begin in the fall is going to be a model for us to apply to all areas of the two counties United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley serves. We'll start our work helping areas deemed as child care deserts."

While the $75,000 grant is important, the strategic planning support also will be helpful, said Neborak, who leads the United Way'sChippewa Valley Child Care Task Force. The program also will enable the agency to offer $5,000 stipends to child care providers in multiple Chippewa Valley ZIP codes (54742, 54722, 54757, 54745, 54732, 54748 and 54727) that submit business improvement plans during the strategic planning process.

"We have seen in various communities across the state that when business, economic development, early learning, and other community partners come together and innovate, we all benefit," DCF Secretary Emilie Amundson said in a news release. "These grants are helping us kickstart and build those partnerships, as well as find innovative and sustainable child care solutions that can be modeled in communities and businesses across the state."

Other regional grant recipients include Indianhead Community Action Agency (Rusk County), United Way of St. Croix Valley and Augusta Child Care Center.

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