By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7 FM/Today’s Northumberland
The new year will see more than 130 quality affordable child-care spaces in Northumberland, Northumberland County council’s Social Services Committee heard this week.
“We have begun staggering entries,” Early Year Manager Lesley Patterson said.
This comes courtesy of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care system to allow more Ontario families access to quality affordable child care. The Northumberland allocation is 404 new spaces, 59 of them school-based and 345 community-based.
More than 50 new child-care spaces will open by Jan. 20, Patterson said, with a further 80-plus later.
“Operators are working with families on the wait list and hiring the staff,” she said, conveying thanks to both provincial and Federal governments “for over $1.5-million in funding to help with retrofitting those facilities, equipment and supplies that made this expansion possible.”
“Absolutely terrific news and update,” Port Hope Mayor Olena Hankivsky said,.
“A very big thank you, in particular, from the Municipality of Port Hope.”
