ANNANDALE’S CHILDREN NEED YOU!

     More than 180 infants and pre-schoolers, children of the working poor, attend the ACCA Child Development Center on Columbia Pike next to the fire department. There they receive excellent preparation for success in life – school readiness, screening for developmental and sensory challenges, and for those who need assistance, speech, occupational and other therapies. Many come from homes where English is not the primary language. And they receive nutritional meals.

     Their parents, who must be employed, pay tuition on a sliding-fee basis according to their incomes. The difference between the Center’s costs and what the parents can afford to pay is made up by ACCA, foundations, and other organizations and individuals. But the biggest source of funds has been the Child Care Assistance and Referral program, funded by federal, state and county governments.

     Now, however, up to one-third of the children could lose their places at the Center and other licensed Fairfax County child care providers. Virginia has shifted funds to pay for other welfare reform measures to comply with new federal requirements. Already new applicants are not allowed to enroll but placed on a county waiting list.

     The result is that the families’ loss of affordable child care could force them to go on welfare or place their children in unlicensed and often unsafe informal arrangements that do not provide the services and learning these children need to be ready for school. As the Center’s Judith Falkenrath says, it seems “counterproductive to possibly have families go back onto public assistance after working hard to stay off of it.”

     ACCA’s Center will face serious financial losses and will have to close classrooms and lay off staff, undoing almost 40 years’ work by the organization’s 26 churches. And we will all pay the costs when those children reach public schools with serious challenges and without adequate preparation.

You can help! Write to your Virginia State Senator and Representative to ask them to support the Child Care Assistance and Referral Program. Use your own words to describe the reasons you want them to help.

For further information and for a sample letter, see the table in the narthex or contact Fred Holmes (fholmes@his.com or 703-560-5234) or Ann Zuvekas (azuvekas@cox.net or 703-978-2554).

Annandale’s children thank you.