‘You showed up every day and made a difference’
Lamont applauds early childhood education staff for pandemic performance
STAMFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont thanked early childhood education staff for working through the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday following a tour of the Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County’s facility on Palmer Hill Road.
“I was reminded this last couple of years how important daycare and early childhood (education) is, and I don’t think any of you had to be reminded,” Lamont said.
Lamont said “during the worst days of COVID when everything was shutting down,” including daycare and childcare centers, “we realized really quickly that we wouldn’t be able to get essential workers to work if it weren’t for essential workers like you.”
Greenwich billionaire Ray Dalio, his
spouse Barbara and their foundation Dalio Philanthropies directed $3 million toward supporting childcare services for hospital workers at centers across the state last year, including CLC.
“You guys kept going, and each and every one of you showed up every day and made a difference for these kids and allowed our economy to keep going in the safest way possible,” Lamont said.
Today, the state’s infection rate is under 3 percent and about 2.75 million people have gotten at least one vaccine shot.
“But we’re not out of the woods,” Lamont said. “We still need you.”
CLC has received $1.4 million in federal COVID relief funding through the state’s Office of Early Childhood. CLC chief executive Marc Jaffe said the money is going toward increases in staff wages, additional contributions to retirement plans and playgrounds.
Jaffe said CLC serves almost 1,000 children between 6 weeks and 5 years old. In addition to educational programs, the centers provide nearly 500,000 meals to children per year.
“We’re very concerned as well that there is a mental health epidemic descending upon our state and community — a public health crisis,” Jaffe said. “We address our children’s social and emotional development as well.” Jaffe said CLC is currently at about 75 percent capacity but he expects enrollment to grow in the coming months. About 85 percent of CLC’s staff are fully vaccinated, he said.
Another speaker at Tuesday’s press conference was Andres Soto, a CLC alumnus who is now a software engineer at Google.
“I entered the doors of CLC at 3 years old, unable to speak a word,” Soto said.
He received speech therapy through CLC and “left at the age of 5 speaking just fine.”
“Doctors had told my parents I would not be able to master one language, and now I speak three: English, Spanish, and I’ve been studying Mandarin for 12 years of my life,” he said.
Mayor David Martin said his late wife, Judy, once worked at CLC. When she was later a teacher at Northeast Elementary School, she noticed that the children who came from CLC were well prepared for kindergarten.
“I appreciate the leadership of CLC, what they do to basically not just provide a place for kids to learn but to fundamentally try to address the issues of equity in our society, our belief in the American dream and making certain that children have the right start,” Martin said.