Jack & Jill Nursery in York recently opened an infant room, and Leisa Harmis’ 4-month-old son Kane was one of the first babies to enroll.
Having Kane cared for by trusted Jack & Jill staff means that Harmis and her husband have the energy for their “second shift” of parenting their four kids after they leave work.
“We’re both not coming home on empty,” she said.
Before Kane could attend Jack & Jill, the early childhood center first had to purchase cribs and toys, and install new carpet so that babies learning to crawl would be on a clean floor. Director Ruth Leonard said she was able to make these up-front investments through a $50,000 “innovation grant” from Every Child Has Opportunities, or ECHO.
With funding from foundations, a health system, and the local United Way, ECHO aims to double the number of children from low-income families in York County who are enrolled in high-quality early childhood education by 2027.
It’s doing so through grants for renovations, tech, and more; a paid apprentice program for teacher aides; and forgivable loans targeted at new providers. Its budget is approximately $3.2 million per year, according to a 2024 report.
That number is small compared to what the federal and Pennsylvania governments spend to support child care. York County receives more than $45 million annually for Head Start, Pre-K Counts, and other programs.
But stakeholders say investments like ECHO’s can help address the dual crises of high child care costs and a lack of providers. In its first year, the initiative said that child care providers who received support from ECHO added 854 new openings in York County.
Recent legislative efforts out of Harrisburg have addressed only part of the problem through a series of tax credits that seek to make child care tuition more affordable for families.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed 2025-26 budget includes $55 million for early childhood teacher retention and recruitment grants, which he says would boost wages for workers at centers that provide subsidized care for low-income kids by roughly $1,000 per year.
ECHO’s funding runs out at the end of 2026, and there’s no guarantee additional money is coming. Rather than seeing philanthropic dollars as a long-term solution, ECHO’s supporters want policymakers to view it as a pilot that can be replicated in other parts of the state with public dollars.
“Hopefully, the federal government, the state government will recognize [ECHO] as, ‘OK, this works,’” said Michael Hady, president and CEO of the Powder Mill Foundation, one of the initiative’s biggest donors.
The nonprofit Community Connections for Children, which co-leads ECHO with the York County Economic Alliance, says about $300,000 of the initiative's annual budget goes toward operating expenses. In 2024, $1.9 million in grants were awarded, but ECHO didn’t distribute all the funds it had budgeted. It aims to issue at least $3.5 million in 2025.
The 2024 tally includes grants to Jack & Jill and 27 other facilities. The money paid for things like replacing a wooden fence that was giving kids splinters and purchasing pre-K literacy materials.
ECHO also paid for the tuition of 19 teacher aides who earned their Child Development Associate credential through a program at Harrisburg Area Community College. And it awarded $440,000 in forgivable loans to 15 new child care providers.
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services also offers grants targeted at bolstering the child care workforce and helping providers with startup costs. These are effective programs, but there’s not enough money to serve everyone, said Jen DeBell, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children.
While ECHO’s leaders are proud of their work, they say more child care slots are needed. The economic alliance said that even before the COVID-19 pandemic there was a shortage of child care centers, and that since 2020, more than 20% of York County’s providers have closed. As a result, parents are struggling to find quality early childhood education.
Leonard sees this firsthand. While Jack & Jill just opened to infants in February, there are already seven babies on its waitlist, she said. The center could double its capacity from four babies to eight if it recruits a second teacher.
“You want to hire people who really have a heart to work with children,” Leonard said. “And sometimes that’s hard to come by if we’re being honest.”
Hady told Spotlight PA that the shortage of child care providers in York County is both a social concern and an economic problem for the community.
“Businesses were trying to hire employees, but oftentimes they had issues, particularly with families who needed daycare or child care,” Hady said.
A 2024 report from the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry found these workforce challenges extend beyond York County: 81% of employers surveyed said they had “moderate or significant recruitment and retention issues” regarding child care.
For some Pennsylvanians, it makes more financial sense to be a stay-at-home parent, as child care fees often exceed $10,000 a year per kid. But even families that can afford these sky-high costs struggle to find quality care due to the overall lack of providers.
Part of ECHO’s success stems from it seeking input from child care providers, DeBell said. She told Spotlight PA that ECHO is “super unique” because it’s a philanthropic response to systemic supply-side issues that tax credits won’t solve.
For example, in addition to paying for tuition, ECHO grants provide a monthly $200 stipend to teacher aides pursuing their child development certification. Mentor teachers get stipends of $150. The grant also reimburses $10 per hour toward an aide’s salary.
In addition to ECHO, a separate program called the York County Early Childhood Educator Awards distributes annual stipends. The private-public initiative is administered by Community Connections for Children, which told Spotlight PA that in 2024 it awarded over $674,000 to 404 staff at 67 programs.
Increased pay for child care workers is critical to improving overall quality, said Jessica Brown, a University of South Carolina economist who studies the child care market.
Child care is highly labor-intensive, so the percentage that employers like Jack & Jill must budget for staff salaries is greater than those of big box stores, gas stations, and other businesses that target entry-level workers. As a result, said Brown, child care centers are more limited in how much they can pay employees, putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to recruitment.
“So we end up with a market where, on average, the care is what parents can afford, but it’s not as high-quality as society would maybe want,” said Brown, pointing to federal data from 2022 showing that two in three child care workers earn less than $15 an hour.
Low wages also harm retention, which can negatively affect children, noted a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The authors found that raising wages for the lowest-paid early childhood teachers "is the most straightforward response" to decrease turnover.
On the flip side, quality child care has downstream benefits. Research shows kids who attend child care are more likely to graduate from college and less likely to be involved with the criminal justice system.
When ECHO’s funding runs out next year, Hady said Powder Mill may contribute additional money, but he’s also hoping York County’s business community will step in. However, he argued that the onus of fully addressing the child care crisis, and ensuring all kids have access to early childhood education, rests with lawmakers.
In the meantime, Leonard at Jack & Jill wants to hire more staff who can take advantage of the ECHO grants. She’s accepting applications for a second infant room teacher and feels hopeful.
