More tough times ahead for the Kaatza Day Care
Lake Cowichan Gazette
By Tyler Clarke
August 30, 2010

It looks like this coming year will see continued financial hardships for Lake Cowichan’s Kaatza Day Care, with early projections of this year’s gaming grants revealing the centre receiving half as much funding as last year.

“We’re the only licensed child care group in the area for preschool children,” Kaatza Day Care head supervisor Wendy Fetchko said, during the Tuesday, August 24, Lake Cowichan Rotary Club meeting. “Having a program like this allows kids to stay in their community, even when parents have to commute... When young families move into a community, they check the availability of day care, then choose to do so.”

Fetchko, who has been with the day care for 17 years, was invited to speak at the latest Rotary Club meeting when member Nick Laninga heard that their gaming funds were down this year. The day care could also benefit from future Rotary Club fund-raising initiatives.

“Having these programs is increasingly difficult, but the communities rally around us,” Fetchko said, adding that they’ll be depending upon increased fund-raising this season.

An additional difficulty Fetchko said that the day care is currently facing is a lack of qualified professionals to work there, with fewer people training to become early childhood educators, which requires two years of schooling.

“Fewer people are going into the field, which hurts us,” she said. “We have to have educated people.”

With two staff members having left last year, a few child care spaces had to be dropped. The centre currently has 30 child care spots….

Due to a lack of funding, the Kaatza Day Care had to raise childcare fees by $100 a month last February, with infant rates going up to $1,050 per month, 10-month olds to three-year-olds going up to $950, and three to five-year-olds going up to $770.