Congressman Antonio Delgado of New York’s 19th Congressional District Meets the MARK Team and Helps Secure $100,000 to Fund our Prospective Childcare Facility
The development of an affordable, safe and high quality child care center will have an unbounded benefit to the region. There are 600 children enrolled in local k-12 schools and many more preschool aged children. In addition, the 87 percent of families in the area are either single parent households or comprised of two working parents making childcare an ongoing issue with regards to social and economic development.
In our rural Catskill Mountain region, childcare is absolutely essential for working families. This high quality childcare facility and program will offer a positive learning environment and play based curriculum‑a proven benefit to small children. In the child care environment, kids get the chance to connect with their peers and engage with adults. Through this interaction, they learn vital social skills like how to express their ideas, how to listen to others and how to cooperate in a group setting. Children also learn how to make friends, share and resolve conflicts in an appropriate manner.
The child care program will offer children plenty of opportunities to enjoy new experiences and make new discoveries, while also providing a good balance of directed activities which will help kids understand how to work independently, complete group tasks and follow directions – all of which contribute to improved concentration skills. The experiences they enjoy at daycare – music, construction, art, cooking, math games, science experiments and more – serve to create a lifelong interest in learning.
The MARK Project’s efforts to establish an affordable, reliable and high quality childcare center will be helpful to parents and the region as a whole. Local employers would benefit greatly as a strong and reliable workforce often depends on how accessible affordable child care is for their employees. This will result in a robust local economy that has the potential to attract more investment opportunities in addition to inspiring people to move here which would boost the tax base.
A study by the Urban Child Care institute shows that high-quality child care can have long-term benefits for children, including: increased cognitive abilities. improved language development. better relationships with peers. If we invest in the healthy development of children by providing them quality care, we will contribute to their success.