The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation has launched a campaign to help early child care workers in Watauga County.
The goal is to raise $50,000 to pay October’s tuition for the children of those caring for Watuaga’s youngest citizens.
David Jackson is president and CEO of the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce. He calls early child care employees “the workforce behind the workforce.”
“The goal is, October of every year, we want to do something meaningful in the early childhood space here in Watauga County. Certainly is a hat tip for what went on during Helene,” he says. “But we also know that this is an industry that is incredibly important to allowing everything else to work here in the county.”
Last year, the foundation distributed more than $200,000 toward tuition for children in Watauga’s licensed early childhood centers in the wake of Helene.
Careworkers for the very young face challenges, including low wages and high turnover rates, according to a 2023 workforce study from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.