St. Alban's

The St. Alban's Child Enrichment Center is a pre-school that has been serving Coconut Grove and South Miami since 1949. Last month they held a graduation ceremony for 100 five-year-olds who are now entering kindergarten in August.

St. Alban's also has a summer program (Summer Time Fun – a focus on land, water and sky) which begins this Monday, June 4 and runs until August 3. Children from 6 weeks to five-years-old are part of the program. Three and four-year-olds are especially encouraged to apply as they may be eligible for free services through either Voluntary Pre Kindergarten (VPK) or Head Start.

St. Alban's receives funding from the Miami Dade County Community Action Agency (CAA) for their Head Start program to serve 232 children for 8 hours a day for 175 days per year. In February CAA decided to issue an RFP for the services and only allow the non profit providers $5,387 per child while the county provides the same service at $9,742 per child. In addition to the budget cut the county also reduced the number of children that they can now serve from 232 to 140. This has resulted in over 100 families without childcare and a $420,000 operational deficit that the county is expecting St. Alban's to cover in order to remain operational. The decision by CAA is hurting St. Alban's and they are hoping for some sort of help in restoring their program to current year levels.

If anyone has a solution, please contact Sharie A. Blanton, Exec. Director at 305-443-1234. Their website is here: www.stalbanschildcare.org