News
November 23, 2020The Schenectady Foundation Provides Grant to Schenectady Jewish Community Center
The Schenectady Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to the Schenectady Jewish Community Center to help the JCC continue to provide critical child care for county residents. The grant will be used to support staff salaries as lower enrollment in the organization’s child care programs has led to a decrease in funds available to cover classroom expenses. It will also enable the JCC to accept more children in smaller classroom settings.
“Because The Schenectady Foundation believes child care is crucial to helping our community reopen safely and sustainably, we created a fund specifically to help providers offset lost income or pay for the unexpected costs of providing personal protective gear and cleaning supplies,” said Robert A. Carreau, executive director of the foundation.
Prior to the pandemic, the JCC was serving approximately 450 children in its five locations within Schenectady County, including the Early Childhood Education program on the Golub Family Campus on Balltown Road in Niskayuna and after-school care locations throughout the Niskayuna Central School District. When its main building reopened in May after a two-month closure, the JCC was serving 25 children on site at the facility. While the number of children enrolled in the program has grown, the organization is currently serving only 60 percent of the number enrolled prior to the pandemic, approximately 275 children.
“The decreased enrollment has put a dramatic strain on our organization,” said David Posner, CEO of the Schenectady JCC. “We are very grateful to The Schenectady Foundation for this much-needed support for our child care programs, which are critical to families and the community in order to keep children safe.”
The decrease in children served can be attributed to several factors: the state’s Office of Children and Family Services reducing group sizes, the need to adhere to strict COVID-19 protocols, and the fact that some parents are not employed at this time.
“Despite the large decrease in the number of children we serve, we continue to employ nearly the same number of staff members to accommodate the smaller classroom sizes and pandemic protocols for safety. We are also facing increased costs for PPE supplies and nearly $1.4 million in lost revenue to date. The need for this grant was great and we are very appreciative of the foundation’s support,” said Posner.
Andrew and Valerie Santillo, parents of children enrolled in the JCC program, said, “As a household with two working parents, reliable and trustworthy child care is essential. We both have to work, so knowing our children were going to be taken care of in a safe environment was so important. Like many people, we wondered about how reopening would look and we initially had significant health and safety concerns. The measures that the JCC has taken as a community center overall and, more specifically, the protocols that the Early Childhood Education program has implemented have helped alleviate our worries, but also have allowed the children to return to seeing friends and learning in a safe atmosphere.”
