Save ERDC Advocacy a Success
Supporters rally to preserve child care program
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Legislative Session Notebook, The Statesman Journal
Queenie Wong
Child care providers and parents called on lawmakers Tuesday to preserve a state program that helps low-income families pay for child care.
Children First for Oregon’s “Advocacy Day to Save Employment-Related Day Care” attracted more than two dozen participants.
The Employment-Related Day Care program was budgeted for 10,000 families for the 2011-2013 biennium, but a budget-rebalancing plan unveiled last week would clamp a new limit of 8,500.
During the event, families and child-care providers listened to speakers and visited their lawmakers to urge them to protect the program.
“I just want to be the little birdie in their ear to tell them that there are people out there that really do need help,” Portland resident Summer Frost said.
Frost said she relies on the program to support her three daughters while she works. The program subsidizes about $1,100 per month of her child care costs, she said.
Salem resident Teresa Monahan, a single mother of three, said the program has helped keep her away from unemployment.
Participants were from groups including SEIU, AFSCME and the Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children.
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