Launching #Childcare for CA

Dear Colleagues, Friends and Family,

TODAY is the launch of #ChildcareforCA, a critical campaign about access to child care in California, which Variant produced for the California Alternative Payment Program Association (CAPPA). The campaign seeks to address the crisis in child care for working families in California. This is due to neglect and inadequate funding, especially for kids ages 0-4, the closure of one third of family child care centers and homes during the pandemic and after, and provider rates below minimum wage. The result is over 2 million children without licensed child care which makes it so that parents are unable to work and more families are forced to live in poverty simply due to lack of access to care. This can be fixed with greater investment in child care by the California government and raising provider rates so these Centers can be staffed. You can find the video, more information about the issue, a letter targeting specific legislators who can make decisions about the next budget, a social media toolkit to help spread the word, and a place where people affected can share their stories on the campaign’s new website: www.ChildcareforCalifornia.com.

To launch the campaign, a group of legislators came together on March 1st, 2023 on a private zoom webinar to shed light on the impact the lack of access to child care is having on our poorest of families, which are largely headed up by single moms and predominantly women of color, resulting in their loss of employment. These members included: Senator Durazo, Senator Menjivar, Senator Ocha-Bogh, Assembly Member Addis, Assembly Member Ortega, Assembly Member Weber and Assembly Member Dixon in attendance and pre-recorded messages from Assembly Member Quirk-Silva and Assembly Member Wicks. This will be available as a Zoom recording.

Together, we are calling on California legislators to take action and trying to build awareness about this crisis to new audiences. Please help us share the video, website and letter to legislators using the resources provided on the website and including in the social media toolkit as well as by sharing posts published by @CAPPA and @VariantStrategies. 

Thank you to Gam Dhliwayo and Anastasia Clarke for your support on the website and Fluor Films for your work on the video.

Thank you for your continued partnership. There are more projects coming up soon that I am excited to share so stay tuned. 

In solidarity,

Abby