THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) — A new YMCA center is on its way to Thomasville, and it could help alleviate an ongoing childcare shortage.
- The center will serve around 80 children with seven classrooms for infants and toddlers.
- Thomas County has only enough licensed childcare for 48% of kids under 5, making infant care especially hard to find.
- Watch the video below to see what this means to working parents in Thomasville.
YMCA to open new early learning center in Thomasville
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Parents here have been asking for more childcare for years and now the YMCA is answering with a new early learning center for infants and toddlers.
"I know that not just me, but my friends, all of us with children, are constantly looking and evaluating to make sure that we're getting not only the best care for our child, but also that there's good options for our community, for other families that are part of this community," says Thomasville mother Rachel Arnold.
Arnold is one of many Thomasville moms who've felt the childcare shortage firsthand.
According to the Thomasville–Thomas County Workforce Strategy, the county has about 1,300 licensed childcare slots—only enough for 48% of kids under 5. And infant spots are the hardest to find.
Arnold says it was about time someone stepped in.
Tom Everett with the Thomasville YMCA said, "The program will be a full-day operation year-round, 12 months out of the year. Again, identifying that need in our community that is just such a deficiency right now in the number of spots available in early care centers around Thomas County. This was a great opportunity to step up and help meet a need in our community."
Everett says the new center will have seven classrooms for kids from 6 weeks to age 3 with room for around 80 children.
It'll be staffed by 15 to 20 trained and credentialed teachers focused on early childhood development.
Inside St. Thomas Church, most of the work is already done from refurbished classrooms to a new playground and major safety upgrades.
And once it opens, the YMCA says this center will give working parents more stable childcare and give young kids a real head start as they enter school.
"I feel like so many families in Thomasville are co-working units, so husband and wife both work outside of the home. And so it causes issues in terms of needing a place for your child to go. And so I think this is going to offer up another solution for homes that have two working parents to make sure that their child is safe and taken care of as well as providing educational opportunities for children as young as they are accepting them," said Arnold.
The YMCA says once those final state and local approvals come through, the center could open early next year.
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