The Harvey County Early Childhood Initiative Fund is built from money collected from grants and donations from businesses and individuals. These funds will be used to help childcare centers in our community close the wage gap for their educators. By doing so, we are ensuring these centers are able to hire quality staff and pay them a living wage. Childcare centers will be able to apply for grants from United Way to help supplement the wage gap, increasing wages to $15 per hour for assistant teachers and $18 per hour for lead teachers. Living wages were determined by analyzing data from the United for ALICE report from United Ways of Kansas.
On average, our Lead Teachers are currently earning about $12,500/year below living wages; our Assistant Teachers earn about $10,000/year below living wages. Our teachers are in need of support so we can stabilize childcare costs and create a system in which early childhood education is a sustainable career path in our community.
Your sponsorship will help ensure our early childhood educators earn a living wage. This will allow our centers to fully staff their facilities with quality teachers, and lead to the opening of more childcare slots.
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