Monday, March 6, 2023
Happy Town Meeting Day week Vermonters! I hope you’ve cast your vote by mail or have a plan to vote in person on Town Meeting Day. Your voice matters; please vote!
Before diving in to campaign updates, are you one of the nearly 350 Vermonters who have RSVPed to attend the Apr-12th Rally for Child Care?!
If not, please RSVP via this link and encourage your family, friends, and neighbors to join you on Apr-12th for the Rally for Child Care.
We can’t wait to see you there! And now…
This week under the golden dome,
S.56 is in “mark-up” with the Senate Health & Welfare Committee. Let’s Grow Kids submitted a memo to the committee last week outlining desired changes consistent with our legislative agenda, as informed by advocates. The committee is working from a helpful list of decision points that Legislative Counsel created, and the Senate Education Committee will discuss study language for universal pre-K that will then be added to S.56.
From the campaign trail,
- 13 volunteer advocates representing diverse experiences contending with Vermont’s child care crisis from across 12 counties kicked-off a Grassroots Leadership Circle, through which participants will receive advocacy training and support to share their stories, organize their communities, and become lead spokespeople within the campaign. Thank you advocates!
- 51 employers of all sizes and across industries and regions newly endorsed the campaign since Jan-1st, which means the campaign’s coalition of employers for child care stands proudly at 248 members!
- First Children’s Finance’s Vermont Office of Child Care Business and Technical Assistance hired a Business Development Manager to join its growing team, which will provide business training, technical assistance, and consulting to help start, sustain, and grow child care businesses throughout Vermont.
- Let’s Grow Kids received an award letter from HUD and application instructions for the $10 million in congressionally directed spending from Senator Leahy to Let’s Grow Kids to regrant to community-based projects and early childhood educators with a desire to increase child care capacity. (Click here to learn more.)
- Let’s Grow Kids is also celebrating a very special campaign gift from Vermont Women’s Fund, appropriately announced by Director Meg Smith on March 1st to celebrate the commencement of Women’s History Month. Let’s Grow Kids is hugely grateful to the Women’s Fund for their generous support and for the substantial impact their work has had in the lives of women and girls throughout the state. (Click here to learn more.)
And coming up,
- The Legislature takes a break next week for Town Meeting and reconvenes the week of Mar-13th. They’ll be back in their districts for the week of Mar-6th, which means it’s a great time to talk to them about the urgent need for action on child care!
- We anticipate S.56 will pass out of Senate Health & Welfare by Mar-15th; will go next to Senate Finance & Appropriations Committees for further deliberation; then to the Senate floor and on to the House by the end of March where we’ll do it all over again!
Thank you and cheers for your enthusiastic advocacy!