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OVERVIEW: The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, along with the Day Care and Child Development Council, took the lead in creating the Early Education Partnership. The goal of the partnership is to create a community scholarship fund for child care. The Partnership produced fact sheets rather than a full report.

Vision and Goals

The Early Education Partnership was formed as a joint venture of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, the Day Care and Child Development Council of Tompkins County, the Department of Social Services, area businesses and banks, philanthropic interests, Ithaca College, and Cornell University. The Partnership is working to build a community fund that will provide a single point of entry to make financial assistance universally accessible to all families in Tompkins County. By creating a system which combines public, private, and charitable funds, the Partnership seeks to improve access to quality child care for all children, strengthen the economic vitality of the child care sector, and enhance a critical infrastructure for economic development in the county as a whole.

  • Challenges: information sheet on the challenges facing the early care and education industry in Tompkins County, NY
     
  • Vision: the vision for building a community subsidy fund for child care in Tompkins County

Economic Impact

Policy Uses of the Economic Development Frame

  • "New Visions for Welfare Policy" - We argue here that subsidies are economic development.
     
  • "Fill the Gap"  - This describes the potential impact on the Tompkins County economy if all children eligible for subsidies were able to receive them.

Scholarship Fund Design in Tompkins County