TOPEKA – The planned new Advancing Barton County Childcare day care facility in Great Bend is one of 52 organizations statewide to share in over $43 million as part of the Child Care Capacity Accelerator grant program, and will receive $2.23 million.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund Tuesday announced the funding. According to a state news release, the awards are intended “to create new, sustainable licensed child care slots across the state and accelerating capacity-building in support of families, businesses, and economic development.”
The program was designed to “advance the rapid development of additional child care slots statewide,” the release read. The funding will create 4,211 new child care slots across the state.
“That’s enough to finish off the fund-ng for the Great Bend center and one other in the county,” said Sara Arnberger, president of Great Bend Economic Development Inc. Advancing Barton County Childcare is part of GBED and is spearheading the the new day care project, as well as future centers in surrounding communities.
“This is one of the top five awards in the state,” she said. “We are excited. We are thrilled. This is more than we ever expected.”
She thanked the donors who have contributed to the effort so far because their support helped leverage the grant. She also thanked the grant writer with GMLV Architects of Wichita, the project architects, for his efforts.
Great Bend Economic Development announced last week the ground breaking for the day care center, which has been in the works since 2021, will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday, July 11, at Farmer’s Plaza on the corner of 10th Street and K-96. The approximately $1.9 million 6,500 square-foot facility, envisioned as the first of several to be built in Barton County, will accommodate up to 59 children.
At this ceremony, Arnberger said they will announce the location of the second center.
Grant background
“We must also harness the economic potential of these investments by ensuring that families and communities have the support needed to fully participate in our growing economy,” Kelly said. “By providing this critical funding, communities across the state are receiving the much-needed support to open or expand child care facilities that will increase access to care for families and support the healthy development of our youngest Kansans.”
The Child Care Capacity Accelerator grant program braids together funding from four sources:
• $20 million in SPARK funding from the State Fiscal Recovery Fund in the American Rescue Plan approved by the SPARK Executive Committee and State Finance Council.
• $20 million in federal Child Care Development Block Grant ARPA Discretionary funds provided by the Department for Children and Families.
• $1 million from the federal Preschool Development Birth-5 planning grant funds (PDG B-5).
• A gift of $2.5 million provided in collaboration with the Patterson Family Foundation.
This represents a significant investment in child care and early learning to support economic development, create new jobs with better compensation for early educators, and support workforce participation for families with young children, state officials said. Unique to this program is the ability to use SPARK funds to support new construction and facility improvements—which is generally not allowed under other federal funding support for child care.
The gift from the Patterson Family Foundation will allow us to add construction to further expand capacity. The funds will support major start-up operational needs such as expanded staffing, training, furniture, and equipment.
“Kansas has wide-ranging challenges related to child care availability, that differ depending on where you live,” said Melissa Rooker, executive director of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund. “We are excited to distribute resources to a diverse set of grantees to help accelerate access to child care.”
Having funding sources that allow for construction and major renovation is a game-changer, Rooker said. “This will benefit the workforce of today as we nurture and care for our children, who will become the workforce of tomorrow.”
The grants were awarded based upon a competitive request for proposal process that yielded 105 applications totaling over $117 million. Grantees were required to identify at least 25% matching funds from other sources.
The grant period begins July 1, 2023, and extends through September 2026.
A subset of 16 communities have also been selected to participate as an Innovation Communities Cohort, to document and facilitate statewide distribution of successful strategies and lessons learned to help us identify and scale effective and transformative approaches statewide. The bonus funding for this program is provided in part through the PDG B-5 funds.
