Inline skater rolls to boost child care
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times
May 8, 2009
By: Maria Rantanen

Bret Hernando loves to inline skate and he believes in high-quality child care for B.C.'s kids. So to combine his two passions, he's inline skating around the province trying to bring awareness to the lack of a child care system.

Hernando skated through Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge yesterday, making a stop at the Child Care Resource and Referral Centre on Lougheed Highway where he was greeted by staff and a group of children with their parents and child care workers.

"It's the perfect time (for raising awareness) because it's the election," Hernando said when NDP candidate Michael Sather arrived.

When listening to political candidates talk about health, education and seniors, he always notices that child care is missing from the list of concerns of would-be politicians, Hernando said.

Hernando has worked in child care for five years and currently works in a before and after school centre in Vancouver.

"I'm campaigning for child care anywhere, any time, any way children are being taken care of," Hernando said. He added he wants Canada as a first world country to have a proper child care system with a ministry of child care either at the provincial or federal level. He said he also believes parents who stay at home to take care of their children should be compensated monetarily. …

For more information about Hernando's awareness campaign, go to http://www.inlinewithchildcare.ca/