NORFOLK, Va. — With help from our parent company, TEGNA, 13News Now is shining a light on organizations making a special impact in our community.
Children’s Harbor is a nonprofit that strives to provide early childcare education for all. The nonprofit has five childcare centers across Hampton Roads that serve children as young as six weeks to 10 years old.
The nonprofit works to “make sure childcare is affordable to all children, that we don’t deny any child access to early childcare and education,” explained CEO Wayne Bell Jr.
Regina Crawley, Curriculum and Program Director, added that “the other large mission is that we want every child that we service to be ready for school and life.”
Bell and Crawley said they work with families to meet tuition needs.
“Some pay out of pocket,” Bell Jr. said. “We also have other families who are on a sliding scale, so based on their income and family dynamic. And then we have families who are receiving subsidies.”
That means stepping up when the unexpected happens. Children’s Harbor has an emergency voucher program to keep children in daycare when they experience big life changes.
“Families losing their income, house fire or whatever the cause may be,” Bell Jr. said. “We oversee the emergency voucher program that allows continuity of care for the child so the family can continue to address whatever emergency they may be facing at that time.”
13News Now and Tegna wanted to help Bell Jr. and his team boost funds for the program. The TEGNA Foundation provided a $5,000 check for the nonprofit’s emergency voucher program.
“We get a lot of calls for it and we always exceed the dollars that we have in the funds,” said Director of Community Training Beth Anderson.
Children's Harbor started in 1911, and the team hopes to keep growing young minds for years to come.
“It makes us happy to have children who went here, now their children are here, and it’s like I won’t take my child anywhere else except Children’s Harbor,” Crawley said.
The nonprofit has childcare centers in Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk and the Eastern Shore.
