It’s hard to believe that in just two weeks school begins again. Our summer campers are heading back for a new school year, ready to go! All summer they have been working hard to keep their math and literacy skills intact. No “summer slide” for our children. We will be celebrating with an end-of-summer carnival the last Friday of the summer!
Community Partnerships
When we work together, miracles happen! At the beginning of summer, our summer campers were invited by the Island Rec Center to come each week for swimming lessons. These lessons were offered to our children at no additional cost. They looked forward to their visits each week. Living on an island filled with pools, lagoons, and (oh yeah!) an ocean surrounding us, it is important for children to learn about water safety and to learn how to swim. Midway through the summer, the company transporting our children had to stop providing services. Our children were without a way to continue their swimming lessons. The Children’s Center made inquiries to other transportation companies, but many were not affordable for us and others could not accommodate our group. We were about to let the children and families know that we had to cancel this portion of summer camp.
A member of our Board of Trustees, Allan LaCoe, would not let this happen. He continued to look for options, according to him, “there was no way he would let these kids be disappointed!” Allan went back to the source, the Island Rec Center, and they agreed to use their bus to transport our children.
A huge shout out of appreciation to Leah Arnold and the Island Rec Center for their ongoing service to all members of our community. We are sincerely grateful for their partnership!
A Good Time for Several Good Causes
Many local Rotary Clubs have been friends and supporters of The Children’s Center for as long as we can remember. Saturday, September 14th is another example of Service Above Self.
The Rotary Club of Hilton Head – Sunset is holding a Mini Golf Tournament to raise funds for four special charities on our Island. This is the first of it’s kind and The Children’s Center is excited to be one of the beneficiaries. Proceeds go directly to the benefiting charities, and the more tickets we sell, the more we will benefit.
Join us for a great time at Pirates Island Adventure Golf for 18 holes of fun, family, and prizes. You can visit their website for more details. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for children (under 14 years old). You can purchase tickets from any Rotarians or here at The Children’s Center. Please let the seller know you are supporting our Center!
For more information, please visit http://hhisunsetrotary.org.
See you at Pirates Island!
The Whole Story
It is unfortunate that the closing of two South End Hilton Head childcare facilities leaves parents without quality care for their children. This is not just an issue for families. It adversely affects local employers when their employees have family care issues. When employers are affected, so are their customers – you and I. Quality childcare is a community issue.
In the article about the closings, the Island Packet shared ABC quality ratings for some Island Centers. These ratings are extremely important for parents, but they must also understand how they are determined. Parents should take into account hours of operation, tuition cost, age of children accepted, and the number of days open per year – not just a letter rating. In some cases, the quality of ratings is lower only because the facility charges lower tuition but still maintains a quality education experience.
Quality is more than a rating of A, B, or C. Quality is the safety, security, care, and education of a child while they are apart from their parents. Childcare is not babysitting; childcare is a profession where dedicated individuals make a major impact on the lives of our community’s future workforce and leaders.
Only a limited number of childcare facilities accept infants. The Children’s Center welcomes infants beginning at six weeks, is open year-round, provides meals included with tuition, uses South Carolina Early Learning Standards for daily curriculum and bases tuition on family income. Hilton Head still has high-quality childcare, no matter the letter grade from ABC.
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