Parents in Mechanicville who work overnight shifts or early-morning hours have long faced a tough choice: find scarce child care or leave the workforce altogether. The Mechanicville Area Community Services Center is now moving to change that, outlining plans for a new child care center that would serve 80 children between the ages of 6 weeks and 5 years, with hours built around the schedules of people working in hospitality, health care and human services.
A State Grant Gets the Project Moving
The child care center project entered its earliest planning phases after MACSC received a state grant, according to The Daily Gazette. State Assemblymember Carrie Woerner secured $2 million to construct a facility for the center, the paper reports, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has allocated $150 million in Child Care Capital Construction Funding Program grants statewide, aimed at preserving or creating 10,000 child care slots across New York. MACSC Director Megan Quillinan told the outlet she had never built a building before taking on the project.
The organization plans to build a 3,000-square-foot child care center near 6 South Main St. in Mechanicville, per the same account. MACSC currently serves more than 6,000 residents of Mechanicville and surrounding communities through child programming, food pantries, clothing and school-supply drives, art programs and summer camp.
Why Local Families Say They're Stuck
Quillinan said public transportation in the community is very limited, compounding the difficulty Mechanicville-area parents already face finding child care, especially for late-night and early-morning work schedules. Local school districts offer no child care for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years, and home-based care has not been meeting the area's needs, according to Quillinan. As a result, families often travel to Clifton Park, Malta and other surrounding towns for care, or leave work altogether to care for their children — a pattern Quillinan said causes local businesses to lose employees.
The planned facility would include a staff training room where employees could work toward their Child Development Associate credential, a certification described by the Council for Professional Recognition as the most widely recognized credential in early childhood education. MACSC hopes the new center will offer flexible, nontraditional-hour care specifically for parents working in fields like hospitality and health care.
Expansion Builds on Recent Property Purchase
The child care plans follow MACSC's recent purchase of the property surrounding its South Main Street location, which includes an empty lot, the Arts Center on the Hudson and the River House, according to a separate Daily Gazette report. The Arts Center on the Hudson was formerly a church, while the River House was formerly a rectory; all three buildings are now connected by a parking lot, and a portion of that lot could become the child care center's eventual location. MACSC was awarded $1 million in federal funds to expand into the Arts Center on the Hudson, part of $14 million in federal funding directed to community development projects across New York's 20th congressional district.
That federal grant still requires MACSC to raise a portion of the total project cost through fundraisers and corporate and community donations, the outlet reported. Separately, the River House will be expanded to permanently house the center's food pantry. MACSC was founded by a group of local parents in 1969 as an after-school youth drop-in center and moved into its permanent South Main Street location in 1983.
Building on an Existing School-Age Program
MACSC's current child care offering is limited to school-aged children, with on-site programs at Mechanicville and Hoosic Valley schools, Quillinan told the Gazette in an earlier interview. The organization has said it hopes to fill in care for younger kids because there is very little infant and toddler care available in the area. Its existing School Age Child Care Program is subject to a license from the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and runs a summer camp alongside before- and after-school care, according to MACSC.
The push for infant and toddler slots in Mechanicville comes as New York has steered new money toward child care construction statewide. The state's Child Care Capital Program was created as part of the 2023 enacted budget to address the continuing need for affordable, quality child care, and for the current fiscal year the state allocated an additional $100 million to the program, according to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. For now, MACSC's plan remains in its early stages, with fundraising and construction still ahead before any new spots open for Mechanicville families.
