The Times-Tribune: Scranton awards ARPA grants for child care programs, providers

Jeff Horvath, The Times-Tribune

SCRANTON — Children learned and played Wednesday at WellKind School for Early Learners in South Side, where a $50,000 grant will expand educational opportunities and enable more enrichment activities for kids and families.

Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti joined other officials at the Fig Street facility to announce more than $725,000 in federally funded American Rescue Plan Act grants supporting affordable child care programs and providers. The grants aid six organizations providing invaluable services, as affordable child care is critical for many families and the local economy, Cognetti said.

“Our workforce, our economy, cannot operate without child care,” she said. “We have so many job openings in our whole region. We need that economy to work. We need that engine of growth broadly and families need that, but if child care is a hurdle it can be a force that really stops a family from getting where they need to get.”

WellKind — which serves about 110 children, the majority between ages three and five — will use the grant funding to extend and expand wellness initiatives and provide a yearlong series of enrichment programming for children and families. That programming will include pottery, painting and other arts-focused activities as well as a range of physical activities, such as yoga and dance, WellKind owner and Executive Director Elizabeth Keiper said.

“We’re just very excited that we’ll be able to do things more impactfully, more purposefully on a long-term basis when it comes to health (and) when it comes to wellness,” she said, noting later the programming will improve wellbeing for students and staff. “It’s going to give them a lot of opportunities for growth.”

WellKind will use some of the funding to repair flooring damaged by preventative cleaning methods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Greater Scranton YMCA, meanwhile, will use a $62,500 ARPA grant to support the addition of three new classrooms, expanding capacity and allowing the organization to open its early learning daycare program to 30 additional children while creating about eight new jobs.

The program currently includes about 225 kids, with roughly 60 on a waiting list, president and CEO Trish Fisher said.

Opening spots for additional children “can help people get back to work who haven’t been able to reenter the workforce post-COVID because they didn’t have child care available,” Fisher said. “So hopefully it will not only help the families, but help the community at large.”

Other recipients include:

• Agency for Community EmPOWERment of NEPA: $100,000 for the second phase of renovations at its Pre-K Center at 312 William St. The center will educate nearly 160 low-to-moderate income children for free.

• Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeastern Pennsylvania: $223,275 to support increased capacity and staffing. The organization hopes to raise attendance to pre-pandemic levels and serve more than 200 children per day.

• Discovery Montessori: $160,000 for increased capacity at its North Scranton campus. Discovery plans to increase capacity from 30 students to more than 100, creating jobs along the way.

• United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania: $130,000 to purchase two large passenger vans to continue providing free transportation for school-age children.

For more information on Scranton’s ARPA program, visit scrantonpa.gov/arpa.

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