Giving Compass' Take:

• At The Hechinger Report, Lillian Mongeau and Jackie Mader depict the dire circumstances facing child care centers, which need sustained support even after coronavirus re-openings.

• Why are child care centers essential for parents, children, and the employees? How are members of marginalized communities more disparately affected by coronavirus' disruption of child care centers?

• Direct your funding towards child care centers and other essential institutions during the coronavirus.

America’s child care providers, who care for roughly 12 million children under age 5 every day, have been devastated by the coronavirus crisis. Called on simultaneously to serve the children of essential workers and prohibited from serving other children, many centers saw their income plummet. Nearly half of child care facilities were closed in early April, according to a survey by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

By June, child care centers were either open or in the process of re-opening in most states but under conditions that providers say could put them out of business.

In late April, an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, predicted that nearly half of child care slots could be lost permanently due to the strain of the initial closures. Experts say that’s why federal funding is critical. “This toll would suppress America’s ability to rebound from this crisis by making it impossible for parents to find child care, driving up its already unaffordable price, and costing tens of thousands of child care workers — most of whom are women and people of color — their jobs,” said Katie Hamm, the center’s vice president of early childhood policy, in a statement.

But child care center directors and employees say many more child care facilities may end up closing because of problems created by living with the virus, a situation that could go on indefinitely. Child care providers, many of whom are already stretched thin financially, will need to figure out how to raise the extra money needed to sustain their business with the burden of added compliance-related costs.

Read the full article about child care centers by Lillian Mongeau and Jackie Mader at The Hechinger Report.