Empowered gathered stories from parents, home-based providers, advocates, and community partners in Grand Junction and Colorado Springs, capturing the challenges families face and the people sustaining early childhood education. Hear their stories below:
Child Care Stories
The Alice Beavis Taylor Center for Early Education opens its doors, expanding access to high-quality infant and toddler care for downtown families.
Diane Price spent 33 years at Early Connections Learning Centers as the former CEO. Diane explains why a trusted early education partner matters, and warns that high-quality childcare now costs more than many working families can pay.
Marteene Diaz explains that paying $1,400 a month for daycare, about the same as her mortgage, is making her family wait to have a second child and move to a bigger home.
Marteene Diaz describes a year of changing childcare for her daughter Kaya: a nanny share, help from family, and a lucky rehire, all while Kaya sat on a daycare waitlist. She makes the case that the shortage of childcare spaces affects every family, not just hers.
Colorado Springs producer and filmmaker Marteene Diaz explains why "just have the grandparents watch them" doesn't work for many families today, because grandparents are still working full time to get by.
Family child care provider Deborah Harvin of Colorado Springs shows us around her home-based Head Start program. She explains how the Home Network helps providers turn their homes into welcoming places for young children to learn.
Deborah Harvin explains that getting ready for kindergarten means helping children advocate for themselves and express their emotions safely. Once they can do that, they're ready to learn.
Deborah Harvin started Edith's Haven after her divorce, when she was raising three kids on her own. Twenty years later, she's running a home-based preschool and encouraging other providers of color in Colorado to build businesses that last.
Samuel Clark from the Pikes Peak Real Estate Foundation explains why childcare is a "sticky asset." Having it nearby keeps tenants and workers in place, and pairing it with attainable housing sets families up to build wealth for generations.
Samuel Clark explains why early childcare is "far and away the best investment" for economic development and long-term workforce return. He also shares why it matters to him as a parent.
Military spouse Kayla Corbitt says childcare, not license transfer, is the biggest thing keeping military spouses out of work. Military spouses face about 60% underemployment even though they're often more educated than their civilian peers.
Military spouse Kayla Corbitt never planned to start an organization. Now she leads Operation Childcare Project, which gives military families direct grants so their trusted caregivers can step in. The typical grant is under $1,500, and families don't pay it back.
Military spouse advocate Kayla Corbitt talks about being a "mentally single parent." Because the mission comes first, military spouses carry the whole household alone, often with no community nearby. She asks what that hidden, unpaid work means for the country's mission readiness.
From former corporate regional manager to founder of Edith’s Haven, a family child care home, Deborah Harvin cares for just eight children, who start as babies and stay until kindergarten, building family bonds for the past 20 years.
Colorado Springs parent Samuel Clark walks through the reality of securing care for two young kids. His four-year-old son James attends Early Connections Learning Center downtown while his ten-month-old daughter Margot is home with her grandmother. Without her, the family would be paying more than $30,000 a year.
When a military childcare paperwork glitch cost Kayla Corbitt her savings and a new job, officials told her she was a "one-off." Instead, she founded the Operation Childcare Project to gather data, expose widespread system gaps, and fight for military families facing the same crisis.
