Community Hospital understands the importance of quality early childhood education for employee recruitment, retention and economic development. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified the importance of quality childcare for frontline health care workers, which continued to be a challenge with childcare and school classroom required quarantines during the pandemic. A lack of accessible and affordable childcare was identified as a community need by the Mesa County Childcare 8,000 Advisory Group (CC8K) in November 2018. Mesa County is short approximately 4,000 childcare slots in order to help meet the demands of our workforce. To help combat this community-wide issue, Community Hospital is building an onsite 7,500 square foot, 100 slot early childhood education center (ECEC) for children age six weeks to six years.
This project is extremely important as it will allow us to provide high-quality childcare to help recruit and retain exceptional health care professionals in our community. In doing so, it will help keep the cost of health care low in Mesa County and is a proactive solution to the lack of childcare in Mesa County. Furthermore, Community Hospital will help reduce barriers to affordable childcare by providing a sliding fee scale and scholarship opportunities through the Community Hospital Foundation.
Community Hospital broke ground on the ECEC in November 2022! The project is slated for completion summer 2023. Our $2 million capital campaign fundraising goal will help support the construction phase of the project as well as cultivate an endowment program for the ECEC. With the generous support of individuals and businesses in our community, we know we can make the dream of having an onsite early childhood education center at Community Hospital a reality!
Donate Today and Receive a 50% State Tax Credit! To learn more about the state tax credit, please visit tax.colorado.gov.
You can donate safely and conveniently online by completing the form below, through Venmo, @CommunityHospitalFoundation or through PayPal, @CommunityHospFound.
Fill out the form below to make a donation to the ECEC!