The Pima Early Education Programs Scholarships — better known as PEEPs — received its largest corporate sponsorship at the United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona Thursday morning.
Pima County established PEEPs in 2021 using COVID-19 relief dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act. That money has since run out and the majority of the scholarships are now funded by the county. They say now is the time to “supercharge” the program.
“The biggest reason that Pima County took the actions that we did back in 2021 is because the state of Arizona has never returned to pre-recession funding levels for either childcare or K-12 education,” county supervisor Rex Scott said. “So we are stepping in where the state has not kept up.”
Tucson Electric Power’s donation of $100,000 dollars to PEEPs this month is intended to help send children from lower income families to high quality preschools.
Through PEEPs, roughly 1,500 students attended district preschools, Quality First programs and extended-day Head Start programs last year. All three of those options adhere to statewide and national classroom standards.
PEEPs provides free childcare and preschool to children from families with incomes at or below 300% of the Federal Poverty Level. For a family of four, that’s an income of $99,000 and below.
“Let’s look in the mirror and let’s say to ourselves: What is the thing that I can do today to help support our community? What can I do today to help even our youngest learners to build the right foundation?” said Vanecia Kerr, president and CEO of United Way of Tucson.
Local nonprofit workers with United Way have been working for decades to bridge the gaps in the childcare landscape, which education advocates say the state fails to sufficiently fund.
Monica Brinkerhoff is the associate vice president of early childhood programs at United Way. The organization champions equitable education for children and adults, and has hosted fundraising events for early childhood education for more than 20 years.
She said United Way first brought Southern Arizona’s business community into the childcare conversation in the early 2000s.
“When advocates have a network that they can mobilize quickly to do a call to action or establish a shared goal like making PEEPs happen, they have the team built. It’s ready to go,” Brinkerhoff said.
Officials are hoping TEP’s donation is the first of many to help support the program’s longevity through what Scott called a “braided” funding model between private and public resources.
An expensive childcare landscape
More than 600 children are currently on the waitlist for PEEPs, Scott said. Statewide, more than 15,000 kids await childcare assistance from the Department of Economic Security. That number has grown by 15% since June.
“If we wanted every child in Pima County to have access to free childcare from age birth to age eight and it was high quality and the teachers got paid a livable wage, and everything was a perfect world, it’s about $780 million a year,” Brinkerhoff said.
Supervisor Scott said the county has allocated $40 million to the program over the last six years.
“Preschool is not a frill, it’s not a luxury. It is a necessity,” he said.
For many Arizona families, however, childcare is considered a “luxury.”
While programs like PEEPs target low income families, even middle income parents struggle to find solutions.
Rian Powell is a mother-of-two from Bisbee who was driving her kids to daycare and preschool in Sierra Vista last year where she worked. She told AZPM that cost her about $100 each day, plus gas.
There are no childcare providers in Bisbee where she could take her one-year-old daughter. The options for her son were also limited because they only provided half-day care.
This year, Powell said, she’s opted to hire a college student studying early childhood education who is charging $27 an hour, 40 hours a week — a cost Powell says is “astronomical” and higher than her mortgage payments.
“The bottom line is it sucks to try to have a family and balance everything else and know that all of the money is going to their childcare,” she said.
Brinkerhoff said United Way’s goal is to raise $1 million from the private sector for PEEPs this year.
