Longtime provider of no-cost child care in Allentown is asking the community for help to stay open

Morning Call - 2024/3/28

A longtime hub for no-cost child care and after-school programs is asking the community for help in the face of financial headwinds.

The Neighborhood Center, in Allentown’s Jordan Heights neighborhood, opened in 2002 to provide low-income families with free children’s programming. The center offers a pre-kindergarten program, after-school programs for teens and elementary school children and a summer day camp.

But the center, with its $185,000 yearly budget, relies solely on grants and community donations for funding. Executive Director Karen Berard said it has recently been turned down for several grants and donations have been slower than usual.

The center has reduced its hours from five to four days a week to stay afloat, and has launched an online fundraiser to keep its doors open in the meantime.

“Right now, it’s a very challenging time I think financially for people because you know everything has gone up in price, groceries and utilities and what not,” said Berard. “So sometimes that’s hard for individual donors.”

The neighborhood center provides entirely free services to low-income families, Berard said. Berard and two part-time staff members are the center’s only paid employees.

The average cost of childcare has risen by 47% since 2019, according to a study from the Bank of America, so the neighborhood center’s services are more essential than ever, Berard said.

“We are in the Jordan Heights area and we take kids, most of our families are low-income families,” Berard said.

Magaly Alvalle, an Allentown resident, said she took two of her five children out of an overcrowded day care in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, and place them in the Neighborhood Center’s pre-kindergarten program.

“It helped them greatly because they could not even hear the teachers,” Alvalle said of her children’s former daycare.

Her two younger children have participated in Neighborhood Center programs ever since, and she said their participation has given the children experiences that she could not afford on her own, like taking them to the zoo, pools and theme parks. The center also has themed days including arts, team building, health and cooking and math.

“They do fun things with them all the time,” Alvalle said. “I appreciate that so much.”

The center launched a GoFundMe and is also asking for donations via check to be mailed to 526 N. St. Cloud St. #308, Allentown, PA 18104.