Two more childcare locations in Port Alberni are becoming $10 a Day childcare sites.
A provincial press released announced last week that Stepping Stones Alberni (located at Helen Street) and Stepping Stones Too (located at Cedarwood Street) will become $10 a Day sites, where fees are capped at a maximum of $200 a month per child. This amounts to 92 childcare spaces in total.
Both locations are run by the Alberni Valley Childcare Society, which already has one location (Baby Steps) on the $10 a Day program.
The Stepping Stones Alberni location was damaged in February by a suspicious fire, but Christina Dicks (program administrator for the Alberni Valley Childcare Society) says that all the children who were receiving care at that location are being “temporarily” housed at their Neill Street facility until the old building is repaired.
The $10 a Day program began in 2018, and the province says that it expects the number of $10 a Day spaces across B.C. to “more than double” by December 2022.
“Access to childcare makes for stronger communities and local economies,” said Mid Island-Pacific Rim MLA Josie Osborne. “With this announcement, even more children in the Alberni Valley will benefit from high-quality early childhood education. And it also means parents will have more flexibility to study or work, helping to close wage and labour gaps which benefits us all.”