Gift of a Lifetime - 2025

Our work at Quality Care for Children is critical to families throughout Georgia:

• Early Brain Development – 90% of a child’s brain is “hardwired” before the age of 5, setting the groundwork for future learning. 
• Early Literacy Gap – Vocabulary development during the preschool years is related to later reading skills and school success. By age 3, there is a 30-million-word gap between children from wealthy and poor families.
• Increasing Cost of Child Care – 40% of a low-income family’s budget can easily be spent on child care.  The average cost for center-based care for an infant in Georgia is $11,066.
• Childhood Hunger and Poverty – 18.4% of children in Georgia live in food insecure homes, and more than 17% live below the poverty level.

Challenges At Home, Right Here in Georgia 

The child care sector faces significant challenges and shifts, which hit many families especially hard this year: a rapidly evolving economic landscape has impacted child care industry, right here in Georgia. Just a few weeks ago, more than 500 children in southeast Georgia suddenly faced the closure of their child care center after their provider was unable to renew its federal grant because of the government shutdown. 

Quality Care for Children responded quickly, mobilizing our team to identify more than 400 available child care slots across the region. Additionally, we rapidly arranged temporary emergency tuition scholarships to support several displaced families and ensure continuity of care. Child care programs operate on razor-thin margins, with little to no financial reserves. They rely on weekly reimbursement and timely federal funding, so even brief disruptions—like this one in southeast Georgia—translate immediately into closed classrooms and interrupted care for children. 

Among the most pressing national trends is the growing gap between child care demand and supply, with many areas facing “child care deserts.” In Georgia, this is compounded by the rising cost of child care, which continues to outpace inflation and puts strain on working families. The average yearly infant tuition exceeds in-state tuition at a four-year public college, and child care expenses represent more than one third of the earnings of a family with low income. 

In response to these national and state trends, Quality Care for Children’s efforts are helping to close the gap in child care access. We are committed to nurturing Georgia’s young minds. Our work is rooted in the belief that every child deserves quality, language-rich early childhood experiences. We aim to help eliminate any economic, social, or health-related barriers standing in their way. Investing in early learning and child care is the gift of a lifetime.